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Amfac Sugar
to furlough 100
workers on Kauai

The company says they
may be without work for
as long as four months

Star-Bulletin staff

Amfac/JMB Hawaii Inc.'s sugar operations on Kauai will furlough about 100 workers for as much as four months because low prices, low yields and a shortage of cash have caused the company to suspend the planting side of the business.

The company said the other 300 or so management and plantation workers will stay on to continue the harvest. Such furloughs in tough times are not uncommon in the Hawaii sugar industry, but they do mean employees don't get paid.

Amfac Sugar Kauai and the other grower on the island, Gay & Robinson, have said the high costs of producing sugar there and the low prices in the market have forced them to look for alternative ways of doing business. Gay & Robinson has said the prices the company has been getting for its sugar on the mainland this year have made it impossible to make a profit.

Late last year, Amfac closed its Kekaha sugar mill and began trucking cane to the mill at Lihue Plantation for crushing.

Amfac and Gay & Robinson had talks earlier this year aimed at finding things they might do together to improve the viability of their plantations.