Hurricane Ivan caused almost no damage to Cuba's sugar industry as it roared by the western tip of the island Monday, and the storm provided much-needed moisture to the drought-stricken crop, media reports and sources said.
Damage was confined to western Pinar del Rio province which produced 75,000 tonnes of the most recent sugar harvest's 2.52 million tonnes of raw sugar.
"Just a few of our 85 mills sustained minor damage and some cane is under water," a local sugar expert said on Thursday, asking his name not be used.
Brigades were hard at work draining flooded plantations before water could suffocate the plants, top Cuban sugar reporter Juan Varela Perez said Thursday in his daily radio spot.
Ivan provided little relief to the drought stricken eastern part of the country as it passed south of the island, but precipitation increased as the Category 5 storm neared, benefiting the rest of Cuba which has also suffered a lack of rain this year.
"Sugar workers and farmers in the western provinces, as well as some central provinces, have benefited from Ivan's rainfall, because they can now increase planting," Varela said.
"Cane cut during the last harvest, which has been slow to grow back, now has new life, increasing a bit yields for the coming harvest," he added.
Farmers have planted just 51 percent of the 380,000 acres of cane planned for the year.
Cuba will postpone sugar milling into the new year and idle up to 20 mills due to draught damage to the crop, industry sources said, forecasting output at 2 million tonnes of raw sugar, a 20 percent decline from 2003/2004.
The world's fourth-largest sugar exporting country sells abroad all but 700,000 tonnes of its crop.
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