LAST HURRAH: Can Mossman Mill get financial support for one last crushing season?

GROWERS' HOPEFUL

David Gardiner

Journalist

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Will Mossman Mill be able to secure enough government funding and an operator to allow a final crushing season, or will the sugar cane crop go to waste? Picture: Far Northern Milling

Mossman canegrowers still hold faint hopes that this year’s sugar crop will be saved – although they still don’t know exactly how that might happen. 

Three weeks after Far Northern Milling’s administrator announced that the Mossman Mill and its associated Daintree Bio Precinct group of companies had “transitioned into liquidation”, Mossman Canegrowers chairman Matt Watson has told Newsport that the local sugar industry remains in limbo about whether the region’s crop will be crushed or not. 

“Do we keep looking after the crop, keep spraying weeds, and mowing headlands, doing all that sort of stuff, or is it all doomed? We just don’t know,” he said.

When the liquidation was announced on March 22, the State Government reaffirmed a promise of $12.1M towards the Mill that it had made at the end of February, but now calls it the ‘Mossman Region Transition Program’. 

Since then, growers and other stakeholders have heard little or even no details about how the money will be used.

The Canegrowers representative said he doesn’t know how much of that money – if any – will go towards supporting farmers who have spent at least $15M investing in the current sugar crop, not to mention seeing it harvested and crushed.

Mr Watson said there seems to be no focus by the government on saving the crop and at least guaranteeing this year’s season.

“Hopefully, fingers crossed that we can get something over the line, somebody prepared to take on this mill, if we can get some sort of commitment from government with the flood damage and what not, we can get the place up and running again – but it’s going to be tight," he said.

Mill still doing some repairs and maintenance

Mr Watson told us he’s spoken to employees who have, even after the liquidation announcement, carried on repairing flood damaged train lines and machinery in the Mill itself in case the season’s crush can go ahead there. 

“There’s still a bit of a budget. They’re not actually insolvent, they’re just in receivership. Unfortunately they just don’t have the capital to get through the maintenance season and get into the season,” Mr Watson said.

“Once the season starts, they’ll be making money again.”

He and other growers remain hopeful that the government will at least guarantee that the Mossman crushing season can go ahead, even if it’s the Mill’s last. 

“I mean if we could get this crop off and that’s the last hurrah, well, so be it," he noted.

“At least that’ll take the weight off all the growers that’ve already invested all that money in that crop, and then they can think about what they can do in the future.”

“Crazy” timing with high sugar prices

With sugar prices remaining high – Mr Watson said it would make no sense to let the crop go to waste.

“The sugar price at the moment, and sugar alone – don’t worry about all your bio-futures – is the highest anyone’s seen in a generation. The though of losing a sugar town with the current prices is just crazy," he said.

“Everyone’s fought through all the hard times with no money, and all of sudden there’s actually some money to be made, and we’re looking like we’re not going to be able to capitalise on it at all.”

Administrator going ahead with liquidation process

As far as the administrator, John Goggin of Worrells is concerned, the liquidation process is still going ahead.

There has been no change or update since Mr Goggin’s statement on March 22.

“I will now be working towards an orderly winding down of the mill operations and securing the associated assets for sale. I will be working with the staff, governments, growers, and other affected stakeholders over the coming weeks and months in this regard," he said a number of weeks ago.

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