Barbados Sugarcane yield for this year is around 96,000 tonnes despite industry uncertainty

Amid ongoing confusion about who controls Barbados’ centuries-old sugar industry, Agriculture Minister Indar Weir has announced a promising outcome for the 2025 sugar cane harvest, reports Barbados Today

Speaking at a thanksgiving service on Sunday at the Oldbury Seventh-day Adventist Church Complex, part of the We Gatherin’ celebrations, Minister Weir reported that this year’s harvest produced 96,000 tonnes of sugar cane. That crop resulted in 3.8 million kilogrammes of sugar and 6.8 million kilogrammes of molasses.

“This shows that we have continued to deliver on sugar production and keep things sweet, even as we maintain our rum exports,” Weir said.

The announcement comes as questions remain over who owns and manages the sugar industry. While Minister Weir reaffirmed that the government remains in control, the Barbados Sustainable Energy Co-operative Society Limited (Co-op Energy) insists that the State stepped back to allow for a transition to a worker-owned model.

This year’s crop was harvested under the same uncertainty as last year. In March, Lieutenant Colonel Trevor Browne, head of Co-op Energy, told Barbados TODAY that no official handover from the Barbados Agricultural Management Corporation (BAMC) had taken place.

“We’ve written to them and asked, but they haven’t responded. And I don’t have an army to go in and take it over,” Browne said at the time, describing the situation as being “in abeyance.”

In a January 8 update to its members, Co-op Energy claimed that the initial steps toward transferring BAMC control had stalled after the government failed to provide independently verified valuations of the assets and liabilities involved.

However, Minister Weir responded that Co-op Energy had not yet fulfilled its obligations. He explained that the group was supposed to invest around $16 million, beginning with an initial $4 million payment, but that no funds had been received.

Despite the dispute over control, sugar cane farmers aligned with the Barbados Sugar Industry Limited (BSIL) — which did not participate in the divestment plan — received a small pay raise this year. Under a revised agreement, growers earned $210 per tonne of cane, up from the previous rate of $190.

While ownership questions remain unresolved, the 2025 harvest has offered a measure of stability for Barbados’ sugar sector.