Consumers May Have To Wait Longer For Sugar Prices To Ease: Crisil Intelligence Director

New Delhi: India’s sugar market is likely to remain under pressure, as lower cane yields, weaker sugar recovery and recurring pest attacks continue to constrain production, even though, as data suggests, ethanol diversion has played a relatively smaller role in the current tightness.

Sugarcane yields have fallen from about 82 tonnes per hectare in SS (Sugar Season, which lasts from October of one year to September of the next) 2022, to 71 tonnes in SS2026, while recovery rates have slipped from 10 per cent to 9.3 per cent. In an exclusive conversation with Saurabh Shukla of ETV Bharat, Pushan Sharma, Director, Research, Crisil Intelligence — India s leading private research, data analytics and consulting services firm — explains why capping sugar diversion for ethanol at around 2 million metric tonnes (MMT) in SS27, could lift sugar output by nearly 1.

5 MMT, and rebuild stocks to a more comfortable level of around 6 MMT, which could ultimately help ease pressure on prices.

ETVB: What has changed in India’s sugar balance this year, and which factor is mainly responsible for the current tightness?