KYIV, July 20 – Ukrainian officials are worried that rainy weather and lack of sunshine may lower the sugar content in beet, a senior agricultural official said late on Wednesday.Ukraine plans to carry out its second sugar beet test late on Thursday, as the country prepares for the start of this season’s sugar refining. But even now industry sources are predicting a significant drop in sugar content, saying this may cut the output of white sugar by 100,000 to 200,000 tons.
“We are worried that lack of sun may cut the sugar content in beet this year, but it is too early to make a realistic forecast,” Leonid Svatkov, head of the agriculture ministry’s food industry department, told a news conference.
Weather forecasters say rainy weather will dominate in almost all Ukrainian regions this summer.
The second sugar beet test of 1999 showed average sugar content at 13.9 percent, up from 13.1 percent in 1998. Ukraine’s first test this year showed the average root weight at 34 grams, unchanged from the first test last year.
Officials say reduced sugar content may become yet another negative factor for Ukraine’s sugar industry this season, following a decrease in the sown area, storms and pests.
Farms sowed a record low 880,000 hectares to sugar beet this year, down from last year’s 1.05 million hectares, and Svatkov said the beet harvest may be as low as 12 million tons, compared to 13.89 million tons in 1999.
Svatkov also confirmed his earlier forecast for white sugar production of 1.30 to 1.35 million tonnes, down from last year’s 1.63 million tons.
“We understand that low sugar content may result in lower white sugar output, but this fall of 100,000 to 200,000 tons is not crucially important for us,” he said.
“Every year we import raw cane sugar and this year we will also be able to cover our domestic needs with imported raw sugar,” he said. The country consumes at least two million tons of white sugar.
Last month the government allowed imports of 260,000 tons of raw cane sugar to Ukraine in 2000 in a bid to avoid shortages after last year’s poor sugar beet harvest. Government sources say about 65,000 tons of raw cane sugar has already been refined this season into about 61,000 tons of white sugar.
