Sucre Ethique - Liberia : Sugar Cane Cultivation Creates Jobs

Daily Observer - mercredi 23 décembre 2009

The issue of job creation has become a heavy burden on the government and on those with the potential to undertake capital investment in an economy such as ours that is struggling to rebuild after more than a decade of civil strife.

But it must be noted that job creation is also the task of the private sector ; and its empowerment is a sine qua non for job creation.

The persistent cry for the government to put food on the tables of the people compels us to reflect on the past, when advocates with this same view were branded as communists who wanted to kill democracy under the guise of fighting capitalism.

Today, the same funny song is being heard loudly across the country, even from the lips of those who once said such demand was communist in nature, while in the truest sense, the government’s ability to negotiate for multinational and multimillion dollar companies to invest in the country to create jobs is unquestionable. But the will and readiness of these companies to commence operations to enable Liberian workers obtain employment is always illusive. One might ask where the iron mining companies for Nimba and the Western Cluster are, and what initiatives are coming from them for job creation. What about Putu and Bomi Hills or the promised rubber plantations and oil palm industries ?

Without a doubt, there are many Liberians with the financial resources to engage in the kinds of enterprises that will provide jobs far above what multinational and multimillion dollar companies can offer. This is why the Daily Observer Labor Column is today looking at another side of the job creation coin to sound a wakeup call to rescue the unemployed masses.

Sugar Cane

Sugar cane cultivation is common in Liberia. Small sugar cane patches can be found in the backyards of many houses in the capital city and its environs, not to mention the rural areas of the country.

When one visits the local markets all over the country, sugar cane is one commodity that is available every day at the cheapest price, and its peel litters our streets even the capital city.

Ironically, while medical practitioners continue to caution the public against excessive consumption of alcohol, fearing that the dependence adversely affects safety, social activities and work, cane juice produced by sugar cane farmers seems to increase alcoholism instead of providing meaningful employment for the potential working class of Liberia.

We do not disagree that those who market the sugar cane on the local markets and even at street corners for consumption are self-employed, nor are we saying those engaged in the cultivation are not gainfully employed ; the consumption of both the sugar cane and the cane juice produced from the sugar cane do yield capital returns.

However, our concern is about a more advantageous use of the crop to encourage greater participation in the production of the sugar cane and a refined finished product, that is safe and beneficial for public consumption.

A foreign company once attempted to produc sugar in Liberia, but the venture was short-lived as a result of political instability. For the brief period during which the company was in operation, then known as the Liberia Sugar Corporation (LIBSUCO), hundreds of workers went into sugar cane cultivation, creating jobs through self-employment, while some Liberians were employed by the corporation itself.

Now that the political upheaval has ceased and the climate for investment is ripe, we think it is about time that Liberian citizens, particularly those with the financial clout, invested in the sugar industry in order to create more jobs.

In our last edition of the Labor Column, we spoke about the amassment of wealth and job creation from the palm kernel trade that once flourished in the country, where rural dwellers were self-employed and generated their own income without relying on outside influence. They were able to build shelters with metal sheet roofing in remote villages.

Today, all that is required to have the people return to the soil and cultivate sugar cane plantations is the establishment of sugar processing plants in some parts of the country. Once accessible to farmers, it will not require any level of persuasion from politicians or opinion leaders to tell the people to return to the soil. Planting sugar cane on a large scale with sugar mills as immediate consumers of the raw product, we are sure, will help provide immediate employment for hundreds if not thousands of our citizenry.

The most impressive part of this sort of venture is that the entrepreneur in the sugar production venture will be an employer of technicians, casual or manual workers as well as permanent employees, while at the same time serving as a precipitator of self-employment and making others become employers in the long run.

Based upon the success of one sugar cane farmer, thousands of workers will flood the tropical crop field or plantation and the mills will be overwhelmed with the produce.

In our mind, the government should now focus on the utilization of the budgeted funds for the Liberia Employment Action Program to set up cooperatives that will manage a sugar cane mill or processing plant, to produce raw or refined sugar for both local consumption and export. This will help to make the sugar cane trade a major source of employment to ease the unemployment problem and encourage our people to return to the soil.