India’s Sugar Production to Decline by 14.26% in 2019-20: ISMA

“Based on the satellite images procured in the latter part of June 2019, the total acreage under sugarcane in the country is estimated to be around 49.31 lakh hectares in 2019-20 sugar season (SS), which is 10% lower than 2018-19 sugar season’s cane area of around 55.02 lakh hectare”, a release issued by ISMA said.

Uttar Pradesh, the top sugarcane and sugar producing State in India, is estimated to have sugarcane area at 23.60 lakh hectares, as against 24.11 lac hectares in 2018-19 SS i.e. a marginal decrease of about 2%. Considering varietal replacement by high yielding cane varieties in remaining parts of the State, an improvement in yield/hectare is expected under normal conditions. Therefore, sugar production in UP in 2019-20 SS is estimated to be around 120  lakh tons, which is more or less at the same level of 118.23 lac tons produced in 2018-19 SS.

The other major sugar-producing State, viz. Maharashtra’s cane area has gone down by about 30% for 2019-20 SS, mainly due to poor rainfall from September’2018 onwards, followed by low reservoir levels, which adversely affected sowing of 15 month and 12-month crops. As against the cane area of 11.54 lakh hectare in 2018-19 SS, the area is expected to decrease to 8.23 lakh hectare in 2019-20.  Sugar production is, therefore, estimated to be around 70 lakh tons in 2019-20 SS, as against 107.19 lakh tons produced in 2018-19 SS.

Due to poor rainfall in cane growing areas, the sugarcane area in Karnataka has also decreased in 2019-20 SS.  Area under sugarcane in 2019-20 SS is expected to be about 4.20 lakh. Ha as against 5.02 lakh hectare in 2018-19 SS, which is lower by about 16%.  Sugar production in 2019-20 SS is estimated to be around 35 lakh tons, as against 43.65 lakh tons in 2018-19 SS."

Sugarcane area in Tamil Nadu for 2019-20 SS has decreased to 2.30 lakh hectare as against 2.60 lakh hectare in 2018-19 SS, mainly due to poor rainfall in major cane growing districts during NE monsoon 2018. Sugar production is expected to be around 7.5 lac tons in 2019-20 SS as against 8.60 lac tons expected to be produced in 2018-19 SS.

The remaining States are expected to collectively produce about 50 lakh tons of sugar in the 2019-20 SS, almost at the same level as in the current season.

During 2018-19 SS, till 30th June 2019, about 328.09 lakh tons of sugar has been produced and another 1.0 – 1.5 lakh tons is expected to be produced in the special season till September 2019 in Tamil Nadu & Karnataka, taking total sugar production in 2018-19 SS to about 329 – 329.50 lakh tons.

In the current season 2018-19, around 29.5 Cr liters of Ethanol made from B heavy molasses/sugarcane juice has been supplied to the OMC’s so far. As per standards, this is equivalent to sugar diversion of about 3 lac tons.

ISMA estimates the production of about 282 lakh tons of sugar in the season 2019-20, which is about 47 lakh tons lower than the current 2018-19 SS production of around 329.5 lakh tons. This estimated production is based on the assumption of normal rainfall and other optimum conditions.