[Photo: File]

Rising harvesting costs, delayed cane cutting and a shrinking workforce are putting further pressure on cane growers, as labour shortages continue to affect the industry.

Nearly 60 percent of cane growers still depend on manual harvesting, but many are struggling to meet increasing labour costs, says Sugar Cane Growers Council Chief Executive Vimal Dutt.

Dutt explains that with farmers already facing high operational expenses, the growing cost of hiring harvesting gangs has become difficult to sustain.

Dutt says manual harvesting costs are significantly higher compared to machine harvesting, creating additional pressure for growers already dealing with labour shortages.

“There is a huge difference in commitment to the cost of harvesting cane manually, significantly higher than the machine-harvested cane. That is where the imbalance is, perhaps in the scarcity of labour and then the hiring cost.”

The Sugar Cane Growers Fund says delays in harvesting have also contributed to the shortage, as some labourers have moved into other employment opportunities while waiting for cane to be harvested.

Chief Executive Raj Sharma says the issue is more pronounced in remote areas where farmers depend on harvesting gangs from outside their communities.

“This labour is a huge shortage, especially in the remote areas, because some of these farmers would have relied upon the harvesting gangs outside of the villages, maybe from Tailevu or the interior part of the Northern Division too. Just because they have been delayed in harvesting, these labourers would have been engaged in other activities and jobs.”

Meanwhile, Lautoka farmer Nand Kishore says the availability of labour has also declined due to migration and changing career choices among younger people.

He says many young people are pursuing education and moving into professional employment, reducing the number of workers available for manual cane harvesting.

The Fiji Sugar Corporation has warned that harvesting delays and labour shortages are affecting cane deliveries to mills, disrupting daily crushing operations.