March 2, 2015
Sugaronline | http://goo.gl/C03N6D
This year's Cuban sugar harvest is 7% behind its target of 1.8 million tonnes but officials still see a chance of making that goal before the harvest ends in May, state-run media reported, according to Reuters.
The harvest runs from December into May, with production peaking in February and March.
"Azcuba has produced 93% of the amount of sugar planned," the state-run Prensa Latina News Agency reported on Sunday, citing Dionys Perez, the company's information and analysis director.
Azcuba, the state-run holding company that replaced the Sugar Ministry five years ago, said when the harvest began it would produce 12.5% more sugar than last season's 1.6 million tonnes.
Sugar-producing provinces Ciego de Avila and Villa Clara, in the center of the country, passed the 100,000 tonne mark in February, well ahead of last year's pace, while other provinces such a Camaguey and eastern Granma and Holguin are tens of thousands of tonnes behind schedule, according to provincial media reports.
Perez told the news agency that the harvest goal was still within reach, but half the 50 mills in operation needed to do better as they were producing less than planned. He said a major problem in a dozen mills was a lack of cane for processing due to disorganization and other problems affecting the harvest.
A source with access to sugar industry data told Reuters in November that estimates had cane available to produce up to 2 million tonnes of raw sugar.
Cuba produced 8 million tonnes of raw sugar in 1990-1991 before the industry began to slump in the wake of the collapse of European communism, bottoming out at 1.2 million tonnes when Azcuba was formed.
Between 600,000 and 700,000 tonnes of Cuba's sugar production goes to domestic consumption, 400,000 to an export agreement with China, and the remainder to other destinations.