Cuban sugar crop slumps to 1.3 million tonnes

Cuba has ended the worst sugar harvest in a century with output down more than 40 percent from the previous harvest at around 1.3 million tonnes, sources close to the industry said over the weekend. "Only one of 13 sugar-producing provinces, Villa Clara, met its plan," a local expert said, adding one or two mills could still be open somewhere in the country, but for all intents and purposes the season was over. Local experts said next year's output could be a bit better, though it would still fall well short of 2 million tonnes.
Drought slowed planting last year and destroyed some freshly seeded plantations.
"There will be little cane available for the next harvest," Cuba's top sugar reporter and virtual voice of the Sugar Ministry, Juan Varela, recently said during one of his daily radio spots.
May rains have improved growing conditions in the drought-stricken central and eastern parts of the country.
Cuba is importing more fertiliser and herbicides than in previous years to nurture what little standing cane there is.
Cuba's sugar harvest runs from December into May, though yields drop rapidly in the latter part of April, and May rains make harvesting costly.
Cuba hoped to produce 1.5 million to 1.7 million tonnes of sugar, compared with 2.52 million tonnes last year, but a persistent drought and other problems dashed even those minimal expectations.
Once the world's biggest sugar exporter, the country had a 900,000 tonne export plan this year, of which 400,000 tonnes was earmarked for China, according to industry insiders.
A local trader handling a new Cuban order said he expected the country to import at least 200,000 tonnes of sugar this year.
The always hermetic sugar ministry has not commented since January on the harvest.
Local experts said general neglect of the state-run industry was the underlying reason for its precipitous decline from a peak of 8 million tonnes when the Soviet Union guaranteed a market at subsidised prices.
"The drought has been like a cold that attacked an already gravely ill patient," journalist Ariel Terrero, who specialises in economic matters, said Friday in a interview on state-run television.
In 2003 the Communist-run country shuttered 71 of 156 state mills and relegated 60 percent of sugar lands to other uses.
Fifty-six mills opened this season, with a similar number expected to participate in next year's harvest.