By Kiara Smith on Wednesday, 30 March, 2022 at 09:06 PM

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Barbados Agricultural Management Company Limited (BAMC), Orlanda Atherley, said the sugar cane harvest, which began two weeks ago, is going better than anticipated.

Atherley explained that despite some minor hiccups with mechanical issues at the factory, the progress has improved in comparison to last year, as it relates to the quality of cane and the final product.

He added they have made a major investment in rehabilitating one of their boilers.

A boiler in the sugar industry is used to generate electricity and for heat in different periods of production.

Atherley said that they also looked at their procedures relating to cane delivery, which is the harvest of cane delivered to the factory.

The efficiency this year, the CEO stated, is having a good outlook for the season.

“So far we have produced an excess of 300 tonnes of sugar and probably about 500  to 600 tonnes of molasses, and we are now into the third week of the crop, which is good,” he indicated.

Meanwhile, Atherley said that they are steadily transitioning into the coal energy industry.

“We are still in a transition phase with the industry, trying to move it away from only sugar and molasses production, to do coal generation, which is electricity generation... Where we are at, we think that that project is going well,” he explained.

Another advantage for the BAMC company, Atherley said, is that they are seeing an increase in investment by the farms in terms of additional acreage.

He is projecting that they will yield 100,000 tonnes this crop season and have harvested 15 per cent of this target.

The crop is expected to be harvested for at least another 10 weeks.