A three-year effort to hand ownership of Barbados’ sugar industry over to its workers has collapsed.
Chairman of CoopEnergy Barbados, Lieutenant Colonel Trevor Browne, announced late Friday night that Government had withdrawn from signed contractual agreements. However, he said not all hope was lost from their end.
“It was devastating, to be quite honest,” he told the Sunday Sun yesterday.
“The potential for good here was enormous, for the enfranchisement of ordinary people, for making people feel proud, for changing a traditionally questionable whole plantation system. That was revolutionary in terms of the vision we had, so it was very disappointing. And the more we got involved, the more doable it appeared. So obviously, we’ve been very disappointed.”
In a statement to sugar workers and the public, CoopEnergy said the Government’s exit ends a divestment plan that would have transferred the Agricultural Business Company Limited (ABC) – previously the Barbados Agricultural Management Company (BAMC) – operations into joint private ownership between CoopEnergy and the sector’s own sugar workers, an arrangement the company had hoped would turn labourers into shareholders, owners and directors of the industry that employs them.
When contacted yesterday, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security Dr Shantal Munro-Knight revealed that chairman of the ABC, Ambassador Dr Clyde Mascoll, was out of the island.
“I am attempting to get details on the matter. I am only now seeing the press release (from CoopEnergy) in the last hour,” she said, opting not to comment any further.
According to CoopEnergy, the divestment was originally driven by an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan conditionality tied to Barbados’ economic reforms. It said BAMC had for decades cost taxpayers roughly $20 million a year in subsidies to prop up an industry beset by longstanding problems.
Working alongside BAMC leadership, CoopEnergy said it built a divestment plan that won full Government endorsement, first through a memorandum of understanding (MOU) and later through shareholders’ and subscription agreements creating two new companies, ABC and the Barbados Energy and Sugar Company (BESCO). Those agreements were approved by Cabinet and signed on December 18, 2023, alongside the IMF’s loan approval, the entity pointed out.
Then, CoopEnergy added, communication largely stopped. It said public and private pressure mounted for it to “bring money to the table”, even as BAMC withheld the financial records and asset registry the signed agreements required it to hand over. Other cooperative organisations approached separately for funding were met with the same unmet request, according to the statement.
Matters came to a head on August 18, 2025, when CoopEnergy received its first formal notice that BAMC intended to “vitiate” the shareholder agreements for both companies immediately. CoopEnergy said it objected, noting the contracts contained no provision for unilateral termination and instead required disputes to go through mediation. It said BAMC agreed, and mediation ran from March to August of this year, but ended without agreement or any sign further talks would help.
However, in a paid advertisement last November, BAMC had contended that the confidentiality of the MOU was breached and it was “unfortunate” the terms were made public.
“Instead of resolving issues privately between the parties, public statements were made that caused doubt and anxiety regarding the partnership and the viability of the industry,” BAMC listed as a concern.
It noted the need to protect the interests of former employees who were promised shares and “the failure to complete the intended investments may have created uncertainty for staff, farmers, suppliers and other stakeholders”.
In March of last year, Browne had raised concerns about stalled negotiations as well as changes to the original agreement and said CoopEnergy would not be buying a pig in a bag.
“It would be irresponsible for any cooperative in Barbados to authorise such significant investments in an industry that has been known to be failing, without complete financial disclosure, as well as coherent business projections, which clearly show how previous failings are to be addressed,” he said then.
Then Minister of Agriculture Indar Weir, in turn, said CoopEnergy had been making excuses for not investing the agreed $16 million.
“I cannot continue to take excuses about the injection of funds they were supposed to have done since the inception. To drag this out by using things like not receiving financial statements . . . and to use their delay to suggest there is a stalemate,” he said.
The initial payment was $4 million and Weir said if CoopEnergy was unable to meet its financial obligations, another entity would do so.
Asked where the sugar industry goes from here, Browne said that question was no longer CoopEnergy’s to answer.
“We have a clear vision of where we would like to make it go, and we offered it, and we were willing to do that, but essentially, it was not accepted.”
Pressed on a way forward, he added: “We don’t have a plan in mind; hopefully things will work out.”
Browne said he remains unable to account for the reversal.
“The strange thing is that we don’t really understand why it didn’t work out. Everybody was on board initially. Then suddenly, that changed, without any explanation to us. We still don’t understand why.”
Despite the breakdown, Browne said CoopEnergy has not closed the door.
“We are so committed to this project that if there is an opportunity for us to get involved again, we definitely will.” (BA)
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