Orlando Atherley, the CEO of the Barbados Agricultural Management Company (BAMC), says that the company should make BD$4.2 million (one Barbados dollar is worth US$0.50 cents) from the sale of locally branded packages of sugar exports to the United States during this year’s harvest, which starts on Monday.
Atherley says that Barbados just signed a deal to sell 2,500 tonnes of packaged sugar to the US every year.
Atherley told the newspaper Barbados Today that the market had just been secured.
Agriculture Minister Indar Weir said at a press conference after Cabinet on Friday that Barbados has almost doubled the price it gets for exporting packaged sugar.
Before, we sold sugar for somewhere between BD$900 and BD$1000 per tonne. We now sell sugar for between $1,500 and $1,700 per tonne.”
So, we have been able to sell packaged Barbados sugar on the international market. Before, we made the sugar and shipped it out in large quantities, which is why we had a bond at the port. We no longer use that bond, and we no longer send sugar abroad in large amounts. “We are now putting Barbadian labels on sugar, and that sugar is being sent to the US. We still have the option of sending sugar to the UK,” he said.
Also, the minister of agriculture said that everything is ready for the crop to start on Monday. He said that the canes have grown up and are ready to be picked.
“The factory is ready as well. We just finished retubing a big boiler, and I want to thank the staff at Portvale for the great job they did. “This harvest, we do think the factory will work a lot better,” Weir said.
