Cuba has sought assistance of National Sugar Institute, Kanpur for revival of its sugar industry for which a MoU was signed between National Sugar Institute, Kanpur and Cuban Research Institute on Sugarcane Derivatives (ICIDCA), La Habana, Cuba on virtual platform.
Cuba, once legendary for its sugar cane, producing about 8 million metric tons of sugar till 1980’s is now in dire straits with an annual production of less than half a million metric tons which is even less than its domestic requirement. Sanctions imposed on the country by the western countries and collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 eliminated the main buyer, resulted in shattering of the country economy and sugar industry as well.
The country had 150 sugar mills then (in 1098’s), whereas after restructuring undertaken by the government, now we have only 56. Fifty-four of those were active only 25 are presently contributing to harvest. Improvements are required all over, from farm to factory for enhancing productivities. The technology in most of the factories is age old and we look for support from National Sugar Institute, Kanpur for modernization of the plants by undertaking process change, installing efficient plant & machinery and adopting energy conservation measures said Eng. Mariela Gallardo Capote, General Director, Cuban Research Institute on Sugarcane Derivatives. We also want support from National Sugar Institute, Kanpur for transfer to technology for producing various value added products from by-products from sugar industry, she said.
In the MoU, we have specified all these areas to work upon i.e. sugar and other sugarcane byproducts technologies and engineering, Industrial instrumentation and process automation and quality control. Our focus would be to render technical assistance to Cuban sugar industry firstly by developing the competent manpower having required updated knowledge of sugar processing for which we will begin with conducting special lectures and short duration training programmes, said Shri Narendra Mohan, Director, National Sugar Institute, Kanpur.
