India sugar output to sour further
India is likely to produce 7.4 percent less sugar than forecast earlier as mills are reporting a sharp drop in sugar cane yields due to a drought and white grub infestations in key growing areas, a senior industry official told Reuters.
The drop will reduce exports from the world's second-biggest sugar producer and likely help support global prices that have fallen 17 percent so far in 2018.
“Almost all mills have started operations and are reporting lower cane yields,” said B.B. Thombare, president of the Western India Sugar Mills Association.
“Accordingly, we have to revise our production estimates.”
India's sugar production could fall to 30 million tonnes in the 2018/19 marketing year that started on Oct. 1, down from an earlier estimate of 32.4 million tonnes and the previous year's production of 32.5 million tonnes, Thombare said.
Other trade bodies cut production estimates to between 32 million and 32.4 million tonnes last month, from first estimates of around 35.5 million tonnes. Though the marketing year starts in October, most Indian mills start operations in November.
“We irrigated on time, applied fertilisers like last year, but still yield was 30 percent lower this year as scanty rainfall hit productivity,” said Dnyaneshwar Bagal, a farmer from the western state of Maharashtra, whose cane was harvested earlier this month.
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