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| A worker at the New River Ginnery manually takes a bundle of the Sea Island Cotton lint from the gin to the bailing machine. | |
CHARLESTOWN, Nevis, May 16, 2008 - The final move to export Sea Island Cotton from Nevis to Japan has gone into motion with the New River Ginnery cranking into motion again after a four-year suspension.
The Department of Agriculture had taken a decision in 2007 to reintroduce the cotton crop following growing interests and high prices offered by Japanese importers.
Small Farm Equipment Pool Manager John Parris, who is in charge of the cotton ginning operations, said it was a challenge getting the equipment ready for processing the first crop, since it had not been in operation for some time.
"The Small Farm Equipment workers we came over and refurbished all the machines because they were out of service for over four years. We have three out of four running," he explained.
Mr Parris said the ginnery had received raw cotton only from the government-owned farms so far but was expecting to get cotton from private farmers for processing the first run early next week. So far 22,000 pounds of raw cotton have been produced.
He said the product would be packaged and transported to Japan via Florida.
Mr Parris said the machines could handle any amount of cotton harvested and noted that while in the past in excess of 100,000 pounds of raw cotton were ginned at one time, the total production would now depend on the planters.
"Looking towards the future it's all about the planters. If the planters can produce it whatever quantity they can bring to the gin we can handle it here," he said.
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