In 2003 I had the opportunity of photographing the burning and harvesting of the sugar cane on the Caymanas Estate in St Catherine, Jamaica. Sugar on the estate is still largely cut by hand and successive Jamaican governments have made every effort to keep the industry going, as it still makes up a substantial number of voters and creates work for up to 6 months. Caymanas was originally a slave plantation owned by Henry Dawkins and was eventually merged with three other estates to form one large plantation. It is still used for the cultivation of sugar cane today and according to Joseph Sturge and Thomas Harvey, in their journal 'The West Indies' ( written in 1837) ‘Prior to emancipation the three estates under the Caymanas name; were called - Ellis, Dawkins and Taylor - all located 4 miles east of Spanish Town and north of the main road to Kingston’. Source, ‘Legacies of British Slave-ownership.’ Today the sugar industry is still the oldest continually operating industry in Jamaica, generating the third largest foreign exchange for the island. January to June are the months when cane is being cut and employment is most plentiful. Most field workers are seasonal and frequently older workers, earning a living out-of-season as farmers, shop keepers or by planting their own cane crops. Many workers are tired of the hard work of cane cutting and would relish the opportunity to make money some other way. The Jamaican sugar industry was privatised in August 2011 when the Jamaican Government sold its entire assets to the (International Sugar Industry Company Limited), a company jointly owned by the Government of China and ‘private’ interests in China. The Chinese owned Pan Caribbean Sugar Company, who its self is subsidiary of Chinese-based Hua Lien International Holding Co. Ltd. The Jamaican Government insisted at the time it had no other alternative but to sell, due to huge losses incurred over many years, however In 2018 the Government scrapped the Chinese monopoly after only three years into the last agreement.
