India's sugar production could fall as much as 15% in 2019/20 from the year before as severe drought hits a key growing region, industry sources told Reuters.
The drop would ease pressure on Indian sugar mills to export surplus sugar, likely supporting global prices that fell more than 20% last year, partly due to subsidised shipments from the country.
The world's No.2 producer of the sweetener could churn out 28 to 29 million tonnes in the 2019/20 crop year starting from October, down from 33 million tonnes this year, said Prakash Naiknavare, managing director of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Ltd (NFCSF).
Millions of Indians have been desperately awaiting overdue monsoon rains as they struggle to secure drinking water amid a heat wave that has been rapidly drying up reservoirs and sending temperatures soaring across the country.
In the western state of Maharashtra the amount of land planted with cane that would be harvested in 2019/20 crop year has fallen 28% from the year before, estimates the state's sugar commissioner, Shekhar Gaikwad.