MAJOR sugar stakeholders visited cane farms in the Western Division yesterday to assess the damage caused by the heavy downpour on Wednesday.
Fiji Sugar Corporation executive chairman Abdul Khan said the visit was to review the damage to the farms and mills and what the FSC could do to assist the affected farmers.
He said FSC had set out its target for this season and it was important for all sugar stakeholders to work together to achieve the sugar production target.
“Our target is to produce at least 167,000 tonnes of raw sugar and we believe that this is achievable,” Mr Khan said.
“As an industry we are looking at all the processes and systems involved in getting the cane from the farm gate to the mill.
“This means timing and method of cane harvests, delivery mechanism of fresh cane and its early processing as you would have heard of mechanical harvesting and this is definitely a possibility. If we approach the problem from the view of the desired objective, being a reduction in the overall duration of cut-to-crush, we will be able to come up with a number of innovative ways of improving our processes and increasing sugar extraction.”
Mr Khan said producing 100,000 tonnes of sugar despite the two floods that hit the Western Division early this year was a positive sign for the sugar ministry.