The following was extracted from Facebook Group Souse Without Pudding on the 16 June 2026– Blogmaster
The only things a farmer can’t control is the cost of his inputs, the price of his outputs and the weather.
The definition of a farmer is someone who feeds the world for enough money to starve his family.
Some random maths we need to know about Bajan sugar agriculture:
- Without a grass rotation crop like sugar cane, there can be no root crops. Sweet potato and yam generally yields 4T per acre.
- Sugar cane takes 15 months to mature from planting.
- Without irrigation there can be no reliable vegetable crops. Carrots and onions may be successful in the wet season but not consistently.
- Barbados is 106,000 acres, 90,000 of which was arable.
- It is estimated we currently have about 30,000 arable acres left, 15,000 in production, around 5% of which is irrigatable.
- Before 1930s, sugar estates were roughly divided into three: 1/3 cane planted, 1/3 cane mature enough to be reaped, 1/3 growing food, woods, grazing etc.
- Since the mid-20th century, sugar estates would get 3 or 4 crops from each planting.
- A windmill is roughly 4 hp and it took approximately 1hp to grind 1 ton of cane in 1 hour. Most horizontal mills could therefore grind 4 tons per hour. Portland was famous for grinding 7 tons per hour.
- Horizontal mills, whether wind or steam driven, could make one ton of sugar and one ton of choice molasses for every 12 tons of cane. Better mills could make one ton of sugar and one ton of blackstrap molasses (from vacuum pans) for every 10 tons of cane.
- A windmill can only work during daylight hours because the bosun needs to watch out for squalls and other wind changes to save the machine from damage and set sails according to conditions.
- Late 19th and early 20th century steam mills generally were 10hp to 20hp and could work 24hrs per day. Generally speaking, 1 steam mill replaced 10 windmills. Post WW1 / Depression factories were 10 times bigger than those. There were 18. Spring Hall, Fairfield, Haggatts, Haymans, Porters, Vaucluse, Applewaites, Warrens, Bulkely, Foursquare, Searles, Three Houses, Ginea, Colleton, Kendal, Uplands, Lower Estate, Belle.
- We started growing 12 tons of cane per acre, mostly one crop harvested, very few ratoons (cane that grows back after being cut). At our 20th century peak, St. John would reach 40t, St. Philip 25T, St. Thomas 35t, St. Lucy 15T to 20T, all averaged over 3 or 4 crops from one planting, the first being the best.
- Historically it took 2 people to work 5 acres of land. 1 tractor replaces 20 people.
- In 1957 and 1967 Barbados produced and exported over 200,000 tonnes of sugar.
So, have some fun with the maths and fix Barbados sugar and food industries. 1/4 of a sugar plantation’s land is used to grow food. we have 15,000 acres left if no land owners are financially motivated to get back into agriculture because their people, equipment and infrastructure are all gone.
That means 3,750 acres should be growing food while the rest is growing canes which will net 15,000 tonnes of yams or sweet potatoes per year without irrigation. In 2023 Barbados imported 31 tonnes of sweet potato from SVG.
So how do we get back the food production? We need to grow cane, there is no other way and many have failed trying alternatives. 11,250 acres will need to be growing cane and producing no less than 25t per acre. Since one quarter of the cane in the total annual crop is too young to be reapt, that leaves 7,500 acres or 187,500 tonnes of cane to be ground in 120 days, which is 1,560 tonnes of cane per day or 65 tonnes per hour.
So how do we get this done? The only viable path would be private sector commitment but that would require Gov’t guaranteed loans to private investors to build three small factories that can grind 20 tonnes per hour (like was recently built at Mount Gay) with licenses to sell surplus electrical power to the national grid and a guaranteed price on the cane delivered to those factories to engage farmers in a profitable venture and repay the private loans.
The country will net 15,000 tonnes of root crops, 19,000 tonnes of brown sugar (we consume 2,500 tonnes of brown sugar each year and three times that of refined ‘white’ sugar) per year, 19,000 tonnes of molasses (the rum industry uses 40,000 tonnes pa) and Gov’t would be rid of Portvale and BAMC albatrosses.
Greg Cozier post from #sousewithoutpudding
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