Brazil Steps Up Sugar-Cane Harvest on Price Outlook

Sugar-cane farmers in Brazil, the world’s biggest producer, are stepping up output as dry weather allows machines to harvest around the clock on expectation prices may drop, grower Maurilio Biagi Filho said.

“Growers are working 24 hours to get as much cane as they can before prices fall further,” Biagi, the world’s second- largest producer, said today in a telephone interview from his office in Ribeirao Preto, Brazil.

Sugar has tumbled 37 percent this year on ICE Futures U.S. in New York on expectations production will rise in Brazil and India, the largest producers of the sweetener.

Drier weather after a year of above-average rainfall will help boost sugar output in Brazil’s Center South, the world’s largest producing area. Mills in the region will make 34.1 million metric tons of the sweetener in the season that started April 1, up 19 percent from a year earlier, industry association Unica said March 31.

--Editors: Carlos Caminada, Jessica Brice.

source: bloomberg