“Drought and Lack of Fertilization Leading to Decrease in Mexico’s Sugar Production”

By Adriana Barrera

MEXICO CITY, April 27 (Reuters) – The drought and the lack of adequate fertilization of sugarcane plantations are leading to a decrease in sugar production in Mexico, despite the initial expectation of a greater acreage in the harvest current, according to official data and producers.

The most recent estimate of a commission that brings together authorities, cane and sugar producers in Mexico, Conadesuca, forecasts a production of 5.43 million tons, below its initial estimate of 6.026 million tons for the 2022/23 harvest.

The production of the sweetener in the 2021/22 cycle was 6,185 million tons, according to official data.

Carlos Blackaller, leader of the largest organization of sugarcane producers in Mexico, said that an additional area of ​​about 30,000 hectares had been calculated in the initial expectation, therefore the expectation of a production of more than six million tons ” seemed true.”

“But the weather factor (rain) is preponderant for Mexican sugarcane,” he said. “Virtually the entire country has been dry from October 2022 until this April,” she added.

The most recent report from the “Drought Monitor” of the state water commission, Conagua, showed that almost 47% of the country was in a moderate to extreme drought at the end of March.

Mexico produces sugar in about half of the country’s states. An excess of water or a lack of it in the sugar cane affects the quality and quantity of the sweetener produced.

“Unlike the 19-20 harvest, where the drought affected specific areas such as the Huasteca Potosina (in the northeast of the country) and Quintana Roo (in the southeast of the nation), today it seems that the affectation is more or less with a distribution overall,” Blackaller explained.

In the 2019/20 harvest, Mexico produced 5.28 million tons, the lowest yield in the last 10 cycles, according to official data.

The sugarcane leader said that another factor affecting the harvest is the cost of fertilizers, which has “more than doubled” in the current cycle, leading some growers to reduce fertilization or not fertilize at all.

“If you consider that the historical cost of fertilizer had been one third of the cost of production, with the new prices, fertilizing becomes more than 50%,” he added.

(Reporting by Adriana Barrera; Editing by Diego Oré)