Sugar Minister Charan Jeath Singh says there are plans to diversify the industry output, with the production of white sugar, ethanol and cogenerate energy.

Singh believes this will provide much-needed additional value and higher returns to farmers.

However, to achieve this, Singh says the ministry will need to invest in new mills.

The Minister adds construction of new mills for the production of diversified products can cost up to $100 million.

“Now, recently on our trip to Mauritius, we have seen that we don’t really have to go into just making sugar. If you want to make ethanol, you can go straight from sugar juice to ethanol. So we are planning that if we go and set up our ethanol plant, hopefully in Rakiraki, then we would like to have this type of small mill, which is more efficient, and it will run 24/7, 365 days a year.”

Singh says the Penang Sugar Mill in Rakiraki will not be operational anytime soon.

“The Rakiraki mill has been closed by the previous government; we have no alternative but to continue with a cane cartridge program. The program provides transportation cost relief by ensuring farmers are not burdened with the excessive cost of transporting the cane from the Penang mill area to Rarawai mill. The program will continue with a budget of $4900000 which will allow the Penang mill farmers to transport 130000 tons of cane to Rarawai mill, the cost of producing cane has increased significantly over the years and the growers are relying on government subsidies sustainably.”

Singh says the Fiji Sugar Corporation has been experiencing extreme financial distress due to climate change, volatility in sugar prices, milling inefficiencies and declining cane production.

Despite these challenges, Singh is confident that with a budget allocation of over $51 million, the ministry will strive towards revitalizing the sugar industry.

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