India’s new sugar season has begun well with nearly 28 sugar mills cumulatively crushing 14.50 lakh tonnes sugarcane and producing 1.25 lakh tonnes new sugar at an average recovery of 8.67%, claims a press release sent by apex body of sugar co-ops NFCSF.
With a reduction of area under sugarcane and an expected drop in cane productivity, the cumulative annual new sugar production during 2019-20 is estimated to be limited to 260-265 lakh tonnes as against the last year’s record sugar production of 331 lakh tonnes which is almost a reduction of 70 lakh tonnes”, says Dilip Walse Patil, President, National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories.
”After two years’ of consecutive record sugar production, the current year’s expected correction in sugar production, augmented capacity of ethanol production subsuming certain quantity of sugar, record MAEQ of 60 lakh tonnes for export would result in stabilizing domestic ex-mill sugar realization helping the sugar sector to improve their financial health during the current year”, hopes Prakash Naiknavare, Managing Director, National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories.
Among the 19 cane growing States, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh have taken the lead. However, most of the sugar cane states in the country have also performed fairly well. National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories. (NFCSF) has released a detailed report on the crushing of sugar cane in the country.
The normal sugar season starts on 1st October with crushing in Maharashtra and Karnataka. However, this time round, the cane crushing in Maharashtra, the second largest sugar producing state has been delayed due to onslaught of retreat-rains, which has left sugarcane fields water logged, prohibiting commencement of cane cutting operations.
With another stormy weather likely to hit Maharashtra shortly the cane crushing may start by 3rd / 4th week of November, 2019. The sugar season in the states of Gujarat and other remaining states too are expected to commence in the 3rd / 4th week of November, 2019.