As the 2024 sugarcane harvest continues, planters from the Barbados Sugar Industry Limited (BSIL) remain concerned that the delayed start to the season will negatively affect their operations.Mark Sealy, the group’s chairman, told Barbados TODAY that the long delay will not only cause disruptions during the rainy season but will also affect their cultivation practices.While some farmers reported having harvested all the canes on their plantations, Sealy said others still had significant work ahead.“We are still going, still putting in some tonnage,” he said. “There are a few farms that still have quite a bit more tonnage to put in. We didn’t start till the end of March so we just had about two months of harvesting. [The] crop takes about three months. I think that the tonnes are going to be down a bit and that is because we started a bit late so the canes are overripe but things are still going relatively smoothly.”Sealy noted that recent heavy rains caused delays in the fields as the waterlogged ground made it difficult for heavy equipment to operate.
