The 2024 Barbados cane harvest commences next week with sugar production expected to be ten percent greater than last year’s total.

Meantime, the severed former state employed sugar industry workers have been receiving their severance cheques, some of them getting hefty sums.

Starcom Network News has been provided with an update by Lieutenant Colonel Trevor Browne, Chairman of the Barbados Energy and Sugar Company and the Agricultural Business Company, the two private sector entities that have taken over from the government-owned Barbados Agricultural Management Company as the sector transitioned to private ownership.

Meantime, Starcom Network News was contacted this week by some of the former BAMC staff who confirmed that they have been receiving their severance cheques.

They told Starcom Network News some of the severance payments were substantial with some individuals getting cheques for a hundred thousand dollars and some seventy thousand dollars.

They also confirmed that many of them have been rehired.

Lieutenant Colonel Browne tells Starcom Network News that in the case of Portvale Factory, almost all the roughly one hundred employees have been rehired.

Lieutenant Colonel Trevor Browne, Chairman of the Barbados Energy and Sugar Company and the Agricultural Business Company.