LOVU sector sugarcane grower Subhash Chand is still trying to regain $450 through a Small Claims Tribunal after a labourer failed to turn up at his farm in Buabua, Lautoka, last year.

Describing it as a long process, the 56-year-old gang president says this is just one of the many issues that today’s sugarcane farmer faced.

“We can’t find labourers so we have to go outside of Lautoka,” he said.

“When we go outside, there is no guarantee that they will come to work even after we pay them cash to help them buy supplies.”

He said with the added expense of about $2000 to prepare his 11-acre farm and harvest mature cane, farmers were never without something to worry about.

“If it’s not the money that we are paid, we are worrying about our labourers, our lorry charges and getting our cane to the mill on time.”

He said the sugar industry had suffered a decline because of the high costs of fertiliser, transport and manual labour.

“The machines are no use to me because we are on slopes and our gang members use manual labour.

“They say that labourers who can’t a find job in farms that are taken over by mechanical harvesters will go to rural farms but they don’t know that the labourers will ask for more money.

“Rural farmers will have to pay more for a labourer coming from outside of their community,” Mr Chand said.