Brazil Region Sugar-Cane Crop to Top 500 Million Tons

(Bloomberg) -- Sugar-cane output in Brazil’s Center South, the world’s biggest-producing region, will rise to a record, exceeding 500 million metric tons in the current season after new mills prompted growers to increase planting.

Sugar-cane growers in the region reaped 499.6 million metric tons through Jan. 15 for the harvest that started in April, up 16 percent from 431.1 million tons a year earlier, the Center South Sugar and Ethanol Industry Association, known as Unica, said today in an e-mailed report.

Brazil, the world’s biggest exporter of sugar and cane-based ethanol, is processing record volumes of the tropical plant after investments to produce alternative fuel in the past three years boosted crops and the number of mills. Growers have extended the harvest that usually ends in November into this year after rains slowed them down.

Mills in the Center South, which account for about 90 percent of Brazil’s sugar output, boosted production of the sweetener this season through Jan. 15 to 26.8 million tons, up 2.1 percent from a year earlier. The region increased ethanol output 23 percent to 24.8 billion litters (6.5 billion gallons).

Mills have turned 60 percent of the cane into fuel and the remainder into sugar, up from 56 percent a year earlier.