With the cup season in full swing on our island, the #YesWeKann launched by Terra in 2022, is back. A This year’s slogan once again focuses on the future of the sugar industry through its technological evolution, and the upgrading of its professions.
Delphine Raimond
In 1838, the Harel brothers acquired the Belle Vue sugar mill in the north of the island, and began the process of developing sugar production. In 1920, the company Harel Frères was created, and in 2012 it became Terra. A decade later, the #YesWeKann campaign is launched, focusing its communications on valorizing the sugarcane industry as a whole and its ascending modernization. Coupled with the verb “to be able”, the Group’s message is clear: bring new ideas that will lead to best practices and sustainable solutions. This year, the slogan of the second edition – Tomorrow’s land, in our blade – is resolutely focused on people and the future. While highlighting the value of the industry’s employees and players, the campaign also takes the image of the cane industry out of the shadows, associating it with more possibilities and less drudgery. The aim is to raise public awareness and reassure new generations of the many professional opportunities, career development prospects and skills upgrading that the business represents, a far cry from the sunset industry.
Despite the redundant figures provided by the sector’s institutions, which point to 34,000 hectares of sugarcane cultivation gradually being abandoned over the last twenty years, and a harvest (in million tonnes) over the same period halved, sugarcane has not said its last word! Not only does sugar remain the country’s most important net foreign currency earner, but it also represents a valuable agricultural heritage, making it a resilient and competitive industry in the face of rising international sugar prices.
A contribution to the environment
Dynamic and modern, the sugar industry is evolving with technology, to become part of a digital, innovative agriculture. Drones, smart machines, GPS, precision irrigation systems, tracking applications, mechanization and automation are now part of the day-to-day business of the sugarcane industry. Our factories are equipped with extremely precise measuring and calibration tools to ensure compliance with the most stringent standards.
What’s more, advances in science and technology are totally compatible with environmental protection, as demonstrated by the sustainable practices and solutions we’ve been adopting for several years now: natural soil fertilization, reduced consumption of water, fertilizers and pesticides, etc. What’s more, while sugar cane becomes sugar in the transformation process, it is also a significant source of renewable energy. Straw becomes biomass, cellulose-rich bagasse is recycled, and molasses is used in the production of local rum.
It’s for all these human, economic and ecological reasons that the cane industry is still destined to prosper!