The Lautoka Sugar Mill has concluded the 2022 crushing season on a high note.

The Lautoka Sugar Mill has concluded the 2022 crushing season on a high note.

The Mill crushed a total of 514, 892 tonnes of cane, producing 47, 602 tonnes of sugar.

The Fiji Sugar Corporation says the burnt cane percentages remained exponentially high throughout the season, thus adversely impacting the process house operations.

It says mill stoppages due to poor harvesting effort persisted since the start of crush.

As a consequence, the FSC says the Lautoka Mill was forced to reduce rate of operations in view of thinning cane supply on a regular basis.

Considering the design capacity, the mill can crush 40,000 tonnes cane weekly, but due to low cane supply particularly in the weekend it was observed that the average tonnes crushed was below 25,000 tonnes per week.

The FSC says overall, Lautoka mill performed well with significantly reduced inside stops despite the obvious challenges of escalation in burnt cane, poor harvesting efforts and increase in extraneous matter through mechanically harvested cane.

The FSC says similar cane related issues are being faced in the other two mills.

As a consequence, the sugar recovery and processing operations have been impacted due to these persisting issues.

Cane that has not been harvested in the Lautoka mill areas is being carted to Rarawai mill.

The FSC says growers with left over cane are being assisted by the field staff.

It says a robust cane development programme has been implemented by the Field Team with an aggressive focus to increase cane production.

Specifically, the emphasisis on effective ratoon management and gap filling, weed control and optimum fertilizer application.

The FSC says three sugar cargoes with a total export of 83,585 metric tonnes and a molasses shipment of 36,000 metric tonnes have already left our shores this season.

A molasses and sugar shipments of 33, 000 metric tonnes and 36, 300 metric tonnes respectively are scheduled to be shipped in the next two weeks.