The 2024 Mauritius sugar harvest is halfway through, with 51% of the fields harvested as of September 28. This has resulted in the production of 122,786 tonnes of sugar from 1,226,899 tonnes of sugarcane processed. These figures emerged from the third meeting of the Crop Estimate Coordinating Committee of the Mauritius Chamber of Agriculture, held earlier this week.
The committee now forecasts a revised production of 242,000 tonnes of sugar, down from the initial estimate of 250,000 tonnes. They will continue to monitor the situation closely.
In the past two months, the weather conditions have been marked by a rainfall deficit and limited irrigation. These factors have favored sucrose accumulation, resulting in an extraction rate of 10.01%. This is higher than the rates seen in 2023 and 2022.
However, several challenges threaten the remainder of the campaign. A significant decrease in the volume of sugarcane available for harvest is due to inadequate water supply and insufficient growth after the late harvest of 2023.
Additionally, the delivery of sugarcane often falls short of quotas and is frequently burned, disrupting production. The lack of labor for manual harvesting and inadequate logistical means for mechanical harvesting, especially among small planters, could leave some sugarcane unharvested.
