Presidential address
Girwar, S.N.
Farmer 79(12): 412-437
1974
DOI: 10.1080/0015587x.1895.9720280Document Number: 289447
Events affecting the sugar industry in the Caribbean during the past year are reviewed. The period saw world sugar prices establish an all-time post-war record, prices sustained at unbelievably high levels, the continued lagging of production behind consumption, the fall of stocks to dangerously low levels, the continued spread of inflation all over the globe, a world-wide fuel crisis which affected inputs in the sugar industry, a world shortage of nitrogenous fertilizers and the almost total lack of progress in the EEC negotiations for establishing either a form of association between the Caribbean and the enlarged EEC or registering any progress in securing guaranteed access for Caribbean sugar at fair prices. Third World countries are moving in the direction of greater control of their own resources and developing new relationships with both the multinational corporations and the governments of developed countries. Like farming all over the world, cane farming continues to face income disparities between rural and urban activities, continued inadequacies of agriculture's social, economic and infrastructural environment and shortage and excessive prices of basic inputs. The various cane farming organizations in the region must therefore formulate in clear and precise terms the needs of the cane farming populations and set themselves the task of satisfying these needs as their paramount consideration.