Sugar Cane Growers Council CEO Tells: Revival of the Railway Best for Industry
Fiji’s cane delivery system was initially based on majority rail transfer of the sugar cane from the fields to the mills. In an interview with SunBiz the Sugar Cane Growers Council (SCGC) chief executive officer Vimal Dutt, is advocating the importance of the railway system to the sugar cane farmers. Mr Dutt speaks from experience as he grew up on a cane farm in Labasa.
He said: “Fiji’s cane delivery system was initially based on majority rail transfer and was designed to enable the mills to operate during the night utilising sugarcane loaded on the rail trucks and waiting in the yards outside the mills.
“Lorry reception was thus concentrated during daytime hours and rail was used as a convenient buffer storage solution.
“Over the years, transport to the mills has undergone a continuous shift from rail to road - now close to 12/88 instead of the 70/30 some 15 years back.
“This has adversely affected the cane flow plans and resulted in stoppages and interruptions to milling and resulting in reduced factory efficiencies.
“For growers it is far cheaper to cart sugarcane through rail system when compared to lorry direct to the mills. In rail the growers only pays cartage cost to the pass-out point of the tramline and the miller takes responsibility to cart the cane to its factories.
“Rail growers from remote sectors who are normally challenged with labourers issues are able to manage harvesting using rail system using few family labourers. However, harvesting using lorry transport system will become a huge challenge for them as it requires bigger number of labourers in a gang.
“Rail system also has added benefit of relieving congestion on the roads and reducing the damaging impact on road surfaces of a system dependent predominantly on delivery by cane truck fleet.”
The former Fiji Sugar Corporation chief executive officer Graham Clark had confirmed that FSC would reinvest in its railways, locomotives and cage bins.
He said this was in a bid to reduce the cost of transportation and farming to assist the farmers to maximise the production of sugar. But he has since left, with little movement on the reinvestment in to FSC railways, locomotives and cage bins.
Mr Dutt highlights that they are looking forward working closely with all its key stakeholders.
The newly appointed chief executive
officer says the council is very much obligated and thanking the Government for the subsidy on the farm inputs and guaranteed cane price.
These has positively manoeuvred the industry in retaining grower confidence and developments, he added.
“The subsidies offered are of great relief to the growers and Governments financial support in introduction of mechanisation in the industry, during a time when growers faced huge shortage of labourers.
“Council is very much optimistic on the continuity of guaranteed cane price.”
Mr Dutt says they work closely with all stakeholders within the industry also the iTaukei Land Trust Board (TLTB), Ministry of Lands, Government Ministries and relevant statutory organisations.There Sugar Cane Growers Council has approximately 12, 000 active growers out of the 16,000 registered growers.
How has the Government helped the Sugar Cane Growers Council?
The Government Grant to the SCGC is an annual grant in meeting its operating and administrative costs.
The Government Grant to the SCGC was put in place to relieve the burden on cane farmers of the levy which used to be deducted from the farmers’ cane proceeds to fund the SCGC’s operations and part of the Government’s reforms of the SCGC.
The abolishment of the levy decreases the expenses for cane farmers and increases available income, which could be used by the farmers to meet daily obligations or be put to use in increasing cane production.
It also provides a fixed source of funds for the SCGC which is not dependent on variables as the levy from cane farmers was.
This will assist the SCGC in its planning processes and the delivery of its services to cane growers of Fiji.
The funding of the SCGC’s operations will assist it in delivering its services to cane growers which include weedicide distribution, assisting farmers in Income Tax Return, Substitute Agreements, MOGA, Increase in Harvesting Rates, Gang disputes/meetings, Land
Rent Appeal/Renew, Cane Planting Program, Cane Payment, Cane Access Road, Cane Knife distribution, Legal services etc.
Tell us a bit about some of the challenges faced by the Council?
Depletion of growers, retaining and attracting growers in the industry. Frequent adverse weather conditions Low farm outputs / low productivity /increasing cost of production
Tell us a bit about your key areas of focus moving forward?
The key three aspects would be financial inclusion which is savings, insurance and Literacy
We have launched the Bundled Insurance with Fiji Care, investment and saving platform with Unit Trust of Fiji [UTOF] , emphasis is now on the financial literacy and crop diversification. There is financial literacy gap, growers comfortably be skilled to do budget & planning , understand bank and loan statements, debt administration and consumption habits.
SCGC is also mindful of the climate change, thus we are in process of exploring options and avenues to source funds to setup a Cane Growers Natural Disaster Relief Trust establish by the growers for the growers.
And mitigation strategies to lessens the impacts.
Do you have growers as council members?
Full council comprises of nine members inclusive chairperson Reshmi Kumar, the two commissioners Northern and Western and growers representatives namely Radha Krishna, Davendra Nath, Ami Chandra, Abdul Samin
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