Ukraine to raise sugar beet area by 10pc in 2011

KIEV: Ukrainian farms are likely to increase the area sown to sugar beet by 10 percent to 550,000 hectares in 2011, the head of Ukraine's sugar producers' union Ukrtsykor was quoted on Thursday as saying.

Economicheskiye Izvestia daily quoted Mykola Yarchyuk as saying the larger area would help farmers to boost white sugar output in a bid to to cover domestic needs.

Analysts have said Ukraine's white sugar output could reach 2 million tonnes this year.

White sugar output from the 2010 beet crop amounted to 1.545 million tonnes in 2010 compared with 1.267 million produced a year earlier. Sugar refineries processed about 13.4 million tonnes of sugar beet, harvested in 2010.

Farms increased sugar beet area to about 500,000 hectares in 2010 from 350,000 in 2009.

Ukraine, which consumes up to 2 million tonnes of white sugar per year, used to produce about 5 million tonnes in Soviet times but has since cut production as sugar made from beet could not compete with cheaper sugar produced from cane.