Mauritius’s sugar crop won’t make up
the delay in growth caused by earlier drought even after
adequate rainfall last month, the Mauritius Sugar Industry
Research Institute said.
Average cane height remained 26 centimeters (10.2 inches),
or 21 percent, shorter than a year earlier, the Reduit-based
agency said in an e-mailed report today. The Indian Ocean island
nation experienced drought from October to mid-January, it said.
The fall in production will probably result in the lowest yearly
sugar output in 12 years, according to the Mauritius Sugar
Syndicate.
“Making up for the substantial lag, even with normal
weather conditions during the remainder of this crop season,
remains a forlorn hope,” the institute said.
Sugar is Mauritius’s main crop, comprising 80 percent of
areas under cultivation and 63 percent of agricultural exports,
according to the Chamber of Agriculture. Production was 452,518
metric tons last year, the chamber said on Jan. 12.
Production is estimated to decline to about 400,000 tons in
2011, Jean-Noel Humbert, chief executive officer of the
Mauritius Sugar Syndicate, said today by phone from Port Louis,
the capital. That will be the lowest output since 1999,
according to data from the Mauritius Chamber of Agriculture.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Kamlesh Bhuckory in Port Louis at
kbhuckory@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Antony Sguazzin at
asguazzin@bloomberg.net
