Sugarcane Harvest in Brazil up by 25% with Plenty of Food and Fuel.

The Sugarcane Blog, 15/07/09.

The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) just released their bi-monthly sugarcane harvest update for Brazil’s center-south region, which represents 90% of the country’s production, which is turn is about 20% of global sugar production. According to UNICA’s press release, during the 2009/10 (April-March) harvest, sugarcane crush totaled 176.2 million metric tons, an increase of 25% over the same period last year.

Sugarcane crushing in the second half of June totaled 33.2 million metric tons, down 0.6% from the 33.4 million tonnes the same period a year ago due to excessive rains, UNICA said in its latest crop report. The region produced 8.7 million metric tons of sugar by June 30, up 33% from the 6.5 million metric tons a year ago. Ethanol output reached 7.5 billion liters (about 2 billion gallons), up by 20% from last year, though the increase has been for hydrous ethanol, which is used to supply flex-fuel cars in Brazil. The sale of flex-fuel cars is booming in Brazil, with 92% of new cars sold as FFVs, totalling 1.2 million new cars just in the first half of 2009.

As this blog has noted, Brazilian sugarcane mills have been increasing the share of the crop directed to sugar production this season due to higher returns than those with ethanol. Ironically, countries that shunned sugarcane ethanol are now running out of sugar for human consumption and are calling on the world’s largest ethanol exporter (i.e. Brazil) to bail them out!