Singapore: Sugarcane crushing speed in Thailand has lowered as the Thai government has imposed a ban on sugarcane burning for the marketing season October 2020-September 2021 according to trade sources.
The sugarcane crushing volume till December 31 was at 10.18 million mt, lower by 56% when compared with the same period last season. The average crushing of sugarcane per day for December was down by 38% to 478,472 mt from last year.
According to the sources close to the development, the government regulations make it compulsory for millers to procure at least 80% of fresh sugarcane from farmers for crushing. The government has also issued subsidies to the millers to purchase fresh cane.
Farmers resort to cane burning as it reduces time and laborious work for harvesting as compared with manually cutting off cane leaves.
One more reason for slow crushing is that around 10 sugar mills from the north and central region have not started operations. According to sources they may start operations in January.
According to the crushing report of the government, 1.99 million mt sugar (19.6%) burnt sugarcane and 8.19 million mt (80.4%) sugarcane was purchased by the sugar mills.
Last year the mills purchased 46.7% or 10.75 million mt sugarcane and 53.26% or 12.25 million mt fresh sugarcane for crushing.
