KYIV, Sept 26 – Ukraine has so far harvested 2.253 million tons of sugar beet from 112,000 hectares, or 13 percent of this year’s total beet area of 888,000 hectares, the government press service said on Tuesday.
It said sugar beet yield rose to 20.2 tons per hectare from 15.9 tons in 1999. Farmers had harvested 5.484 million tons of beet from 325,500 hectares at the same date last year.
Only 1.5 million tons of sugar beet have been supplied to sugar refineries so far, the press service said.
Analysts and officials say this year’s beet harvest is snagging on the rainy weather which has already delayed the crop by two weeks. Slow harvesting leads to a lack of beet supplied to local refineries.
Industry officials have said the beet harvest may total 13.50 million tons, compared to 13.89 million tons in 1999.
A senior industry official said earlier this month that Ukraine, which produced over three million tons of white sugar in Soviet times, was likely to produce no more than 1.5 million tons this year, down from last year’s poor 1.64 million tons.
