Lucknow, UNI, 1 July: Sugarcane acreage area along with sugar production in India is expected to take a dip in the next crushing season, hinted Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) here on Monday.
Based on the satellite images procured in the latter part of June 2019, the total acreage under sugarcane in India is estimated to be around 49.31 lakh hectares in 2019-20 season, which is over 10 per cent lower than 2018-19 sugar season’s cane area of around 55.02 lakh hectares.
ISMA in a statement here said Uttar Pradesh is the leading sugarcane and sugar producing state in India, is estimated to have sugarcane area at 23.60 lakh hectares, as against 24.11 lakh hectare in 2018-19, a marginal decrease of about 2 per cent.
Considering varietal replacement by high yielding cane varieties in remaining parts of the State, an improvement in yield per hectare is expected under normal conditions. Thus, sugar production in UP in 2019-20 SS season is estimated to be around 120 lakh tons, which is more or less at the same level of 118.23 lakh tonnes produced in 2018-19.
The other major sugar-producing State, Maharashtra’s cane area has gone down by about 30 per cent 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 hectares in 2018-19, area is expected to decrease to 8.23 lakh hectares in 2019-20. Sugar production is, therefore, estimated to be around 70 lakh tonnes in 2019-20, as against 107.19 lakh tonnes produced in 2018-19.
Similar to Maharashtra, due to poor rainfall in cane growing areas, sugarcane area in Karnataka has also decreased for 2019-20. Area under sugarcane in 2019-20 is expected to be about 4.20 lakh hectares as against 5.02 lakh hectares in 2018-19 , which is lower by about 16 per cent. Sugar production in 2019-20 is estimated to be around 35 lakh tonnes, as against 43.65 lakh tonnes expected to be produced in 2018-19.
Sugarcane area in Tamil Nadu for 2019-20 SS has decreased to about 2.30 lakh hectares as against 2.60 lakh hectares in 2018-19, mainly due to deficient rainfall in major cane growing districts during NE monsoon 2018. Sugar production is expected to be around 7.5 lakh tonnes in 2019-20 SS as against 8.60 lakh tonnes expected to be produced in 2018-19.
The remaining States are expected to collectively produce about 50 lakh tonnes of sugar in the 2019-20, almost at the same level as in the current season.
During 2018-19, till June 30, 2019, about 328.09 lakh tons of sugar have 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 and Karnataka, taking total sugar production in 2018-19 to about 329 – 329.50 lakh tonnes.
In the current season 2018-19, about 29.5 crore liters of Ethanol made from B heavy molasses/sugarcane juice have been supplied to the OMC’s so far. As per standards, this is equivalent to sugar diversion of about three lakh tonnes.
As per above, ISMA estimates sugar production of about 282 lakh tons of sugar in the season 2019-20, which is about 47 lakh tonnes lower than the current 2018-19 SS production of around 329.5 lakh tonnes. This estimated production is based on assumption of normal rainfall and other optimum conditions.
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