Id: 74 Name: Media Release - Sugar production updates till 16th Sep, 2013 Venue: DELHI Date: 17 Sep 2013 Event Pdf: ISMA is ready with their First Advance estimates for 2013-14 sugar season based on the August, 2013 Satellite images of sugarcane crop in India. This satellite survey has been vetted with field visits/reports to get a more accurate picture of the cane acreage for the ensuing sugar season starting from October, 2013. As per satellite images, availability of total sugarcane acreage for crushing in India in sugar season 2013-14, will be around 52.89 lakh hectare which is almost 9% higher than the initial estimates of Ministry of Agriculture of 48.53 lakh hectare. ISMA has taken other parameters like cane yield, drawal %, recovery, expected factory operations etc into consideration and finalized that with this kind of sugarcane acreage and an unprecedented very high rainfall in the last few months, sugar production in the sugar season 2013-14 is expected to be about  250 lakh tons of sugar. Maharashtra sugarcane acreage is reported to be around 9.4 lakh hectare, which is almost similar to 2012-13. No substantial yield enhancement is expected over last year, due to more sugarcane acreage under ratoon crop than the usual. It’s slightly early to estimate sugar recovery, but it is estimated that, sugar recovery should be around last year’s level of 11.44%. Taking all parameters into consideration, ISMA has projected about 78 lakh tons of sugar production for the State, which is almost similar to last year when the sugar production was around 80 lakh tons. Uttar Pradesh has shown acreage of around 25.13 lakh hectare, which is the same as that of Ministry of Agriculture released figures, but higher by about 3.6% than the last year’s acreage of ISMA’s figures. However, ISMA is expecting slightly lower yields than last year on account of lesser millable sugarcane per hectare availability due to excess rains, which affected the late sown sugarcane plants this year. Therefore,  77 lakh tons of sugar production is expected from UP in ensuing sugar season 2013-14. Karnataka sugar production is expected to remain at almost the same levels of last year i.e. around 34 lakh tons, while major fall is only expected from Tamil Nadu which may give 15% lower production of 16.4 lakh tons, as compared to last year’s production of about 19 lakh tons of sugar. ISMA had released the preliminary estimates in the month of July 2013, which was based on the June satellite images and estimated before the on-set of the South West monsoon. ISMA will once again review its estimates in the month of Jan, 2014 and come out with its second advance estimates, which will be based on the Jan, 2014 satellite images and field reports of actual harvesting, yields and sugar recovery actually achieved.