Cuba reports extensive damage to sugar industry

Cuba reports extensive damage to sugar industry
Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:52am EDT

HAVANA (Reuters) - Hurricane Ike flattened and swamped 740,000 acres of
Cuban sugar cane and damaged a large number of facilities when it
churned along the entire island a week ago, state-run radio said on
Saturday.

Cuba's top sugar reporter, Juan Varela, citing a Sugar Ministry report,
said on Radio Progreso that as of Friday 476,000 acres of cane were
reported flattened and 267,000 acres were under varying amounts of water.

Varela said hundreds of buildings, from mills to warehouses, were
damaged, particularly their roofs.

Cuba harvested 815,000 acres of cane during the 2008 harvest, producing
almost 1.5 million tonnes of raw sugar.

There are 1.7 million acres devoted to sugar cane in the country.

"At least 115 industrial facilities were damaged, I am referring to
mills and factories in the sector, and especially roofs, and 150 railway
facilities and 132 warehouses," Varela said.

"Much of the flattened cane is salvageable, though yields will suffer,"
Varela said, adding water would have to be drained quickly from
plantations or cane would be lost.

The Sugar Ministry also reported at least 430 miles of plantation roads
were washed out and 14 rail and highway bridges linking plantations to
mills.

Earlier reports had 100,000 pieces of roofing blown off sugar industry
mills and other installations.

The ministry in July said the 2009 crop would increase by 25 percent to
30 percent over 2008.

Cuba consumes a minimum 700,000 tonnes of sugar per year, and 400,000
tonnes are destined for China.

(Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Eric Beech)

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