The ongoing shortage of labor and rising costs have led to an increase in standover cane during the 2022 and 2023 seasons. In 2022, the total amount of standover cane reached 26,040 tonnes, with 82 percent attributed to labor shortages or high labor costs that farmers struggled to pay.
According to Bhan Pratap Singh, the chief executive officer of the Fiji Sugar Corporation (FSC), the amount of standover cane rose to 28,575 tonnes in the 2023 season, marking a 10 percent increase compared to the previous year. Mr. Singh highlighted that 93 percent of the cane remained unharvested due to labor-related challenges.
He noted that 87 percent of the standover cane came from hilly and undulating terrain, making it difficult for mechanical harvesters to operate, a problem that persists in areas reliant on manual labor. He stated that manual harvesting still represents approximately 50 percent of total cane harvests, although the number of cane cutters has dwindled to around 5,000 to 6,000.
Farmers have struggled to find laborers particularly for harvesting tasks on their farms. To address these challenges, FSC is collaborating with the Ministry of Sugar Industry to introduce suitable harvesters for hilly areas over the next two years.
In terms of manual harvesting, it constituted 42.2 percent of the total cane harvested this season, reflecting a 5 percent increase from 2022. Mr. Singh highlighted that in 2016, only 8.9 percent of cane was mechanically harvested, underscoring the significant progress made over the past seven years in both the number of harvesters and the volume of cane harvested.
Overall, the 2023 sugar crop amounted to 1.57 million tonnes from a harvested area of 32,285 hectares, supported by 10,565 growers, achieving an average productivity of 47 tonnes per hectare.