India~s cane region gets heavy rains too late

Aug 17 2009 1:25PM

NEW DELHI, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Drought-hit areas in India's main cane-producing region received heavy rains for the first time in three weeks, but weather officials and the sugar industry were divided about the impact on the crop.

India's monsoon rains have been 29 percent below average since the beginning of June, and in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh -- which normally produces more than half of the country's sugarcane -- the rain deficit has been bigger.

"Monsoon rains in the last 2-3 days over cane- and soybean-growing belts have brightened crop prospects," L.S. Rathore, head of Agromet Division of the India Meteorological Department, told Reuters.

However, trade officials said heavy rains may also harm the cane crop.

"Rains have no special significance now. Rather heavy rains will harm the standing sugarcane crop," said C.B. Patodia, chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Sugar Mills Association.

The weather office forecast "fairly widespread" rainfall over Uttar Pradesh, but Patodia said this may not be good news for the crop.

"For the sake of good cane harvest, especially its yield and recovery, rains should not continue now," he said.

In the western part of Uttar Pradesh, where most sugar mills are located, monsoon rains have been 68 percent below normal, while in the eastern part, the shortfall has been 53 percent.

The cane area in India, the world's biggest sugar consumer, stagnated at 4.25 million hectares from mid-July, mainly due to lack of rains.

Cane area was initially expected to expand sharply from 4.38 million hectares last year, when low domestic output led to a fall in sugar production, making India a large importer.

The fall in cane output for a second successive year has raised prospects of large Indian imports, helping raw sugar futures surge to a 28-1/2-year high last week.

Rainfall also increased in the soybean-growing central region of the country and is forecast to continue.

The central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh received up to four times of normal rainfall in the middle of last week. Traders had feared productivity might drop up to 7 percent if rains were delayed further.

Soybean, the main summer-sown oilseed crop, had also been deprived of rains for about three weeks from late July.