The National Farmers Union (NFU) has raised the concern over the performance of sugar mills stating that they are performing below their capacity increasing the wait hours of lorry drivers to offload cane.
According to the news report published in fijitimes.com, all the three sugar mills of the Fiji Sugar Corporation (FSC) have crushed 283,000 tonnes of cane and produced 24,000 tonnes of sugar till August 1. The mills have crushed the sugarcane with an average TCTS (tonnes cane to tonnes sugar) of 11.91.
Mahendra Chaudhry, general secretary, NFU said all three mills are under-performing but there is no word from the FSC on what is wrong.
“FSC is not able to fix the mechanical and processing problems that are hampering the performance of the mills. This is causing huge loss to farmers and the sugar industry as a whole,” he said.
Bhan Singh, FSC CEO however said that all the three mills are performing to their capacity. “There is an issue of cane supply at Labasa sugar mill and there were minor issues at the Lautoka and Rarawai mills in the first 2 weeks of the season which have been resolved. All mills are operating well now,” he said.
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