Speaking at the Annual General Meeting of the All-Island Cane Farmers Association in Kingston this month, Brazilian biotechnology and biofuels expert Professor Antonio Bonomi said Brazil was “interested” in partnering with Jamaica in ethanol production.
The Jamaican sugar industry has traditionally been focused on export to the European Union and supported the production of alcoholic export products such as rum, but Jamaican agriculture minister Roger Clarke has reacted positively to the potential of an ethanol partnership.
"Everybody is conceding that the days of just manufacturing sugar cane and molasses are over,” Clarke said in a statement.
“Co-products must be produced if we are going to have a wider income base from the sugar cane industry. Sugar, ethanol, [and] cogeneration means that we are using everything that comes from the sugar cane. That is where we have to go if we want to survive.”
Clarke said that a partnership with Brazil would provide Jamaica with access to improved farming and ethanol production techniques and technologies to help the country produce the sugar cane required to sustain an alternative fuel industry.
Clarke said that new technologies would also make it possible for ethanol to be produced from the waste product bagasse – the residue left behind after crushing cane in sugar production.
The value of sugar as a Jamaican export commodity has been steadily falling over the last four years, with the EU experiencing a glut in the market.
