Cane Fires

-
The fires that have been raging across Barbados during the last three months have had a devastating impact on the sugar industry.

The sector has lost just over five thousand tonnes of sugar, which means it will struggle to reach the 30 thousand tonnes target this year. The scale of the fires has been so massive it forced the crop to start one week earlier than planned on February 8th.

Sugar officials say just over five thousand tonnes of canes have been lost as a result of cane fires . They also say that out of the 64 thousand tonnes of canes they have received at the island's two sugar factories, Andrew's and Portvale, 20 percent of all these canes have been burnt.

They say this means that Barbados will be struggling to reach its target of 30 thousand tonnes this year.

So far for the crop the island has produced just under 69 hundred tonnes of sugar, with Andrew's leading the way producing 4690 tonnes and Portvale 2182 tonnes.

The sugar crop is expected to last between 13 to 14 weeks ending around the third week in May. Last year Barbados produced just over 34 thousand tonnes of sugar. Most was shipped to the European market.

Meanwhile police are carrying out investigations into a series of bush and cane fires which occurred in the St. James area recently. According to the police public relations department a man is now assisting them as they probe the latest blaze also in that parish

Source: www.cbc.bb

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chief Fire Officer: Not Enough Citizens Taking Fire Prevention Seriously

-
Chief Fire Officer Wilfred Marshall has expressed concern about the high number of structural fires taking place in Barbados, in particular private dwelling houses and commercial building fires. Marshall has noted that while some fires are due to carelessness on the part of homeowners and others have been deemed as “suspicious”, a number of these fires have been classified as “undetermined”. Homeowners and people in general still have a role to play in fire prevention, he has noted. Speaking to the Barbados Advocate yesterday at Barbados Fire Service Headquarters located at Probyn Street Bridgetown, the Chief Fire Officer lamented about the number of fires of which the origin has not been determined. “I am always concerned that we have a high percentage of undetermined fires. We work closely with the police in terms of determining the cause of fires and so it is not only the Fire Service that is involved in determining the cause of a fire. We work closely with them as they bring a fore...
Read more

6 Ton Obsolete Satellite Falling To Earth

-
Image
A nearly 6-ton satellite is gradually falling from Earth orbit, and parts of it could crash to the surface as early as Friday, September 23 (today), NASA officials said. NASA officials told ABC News overnight that they won't know where the satellite will hit until two hours before it enters the Earth's atmosphere, moving at 5 miles per second. The space agency's space debris experts predict that at least 26 large pieces of the satellite will survive the scorching temperatures of atmospheric re-entry. But exactly where the UARS satellite debris will fall is uncertain. NASA officials have said that the drop zone for UARS satellite debris could be anywhere between the latitudes of northern Canada and southern South America, an area that includes much of the planet. The satellite should re-enter over a 500-mile (804-kilometer) track, according to NASA officials. Since 75 percent of Earth is covered with ocean, there is a high likelihood that the satellite will re-enter ov...
Read more