According to forecasts by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, this season we can count on production of up to 6.5 million tons, while at the end of last season this figure was 6.2 million tons.
In general, Russia has been fully meeting its sugar needs for several years in a row, because annual domestic consumption does not exceed 5.8 million tons.
Since production is higher than consumption, there are still opportunities to send some of the products for export.
For example, last season about 0.33 million tons of sugar were sold abroad. Moreover, even taking into account exports, there are carryover balances, this time they amounted to about 1.2 million tons.
All this together suggests that there is no hint of a sugar shortage in Russia.
Why is sugar production growing?
One of the factors is the expansion of areas under sugar beets.
In addition, productivity and sugar content increase. Due to good weather (dry and warm), this year the sugar content has increased by 15%, which will allow us to get more sugar from one ton of beets.
Currently, beet harvesting has just begun, but 20% more of this crop has already been dug than at the same date last year.
What will happen to sugar prices?
On the one hand, as already mentioned, there is no shortage, so there should not be any price increases that would exceed the average inflation rate in the country.
On the other hand, there are some factors that may still cause the price of sugar to rise in stores.
Among them, for example, are high world prices for sugar, as well as a weak ruble.
This combination of factors makes it very profitable for producers to sell sugar abroad; this could theoretically cause a shortage, but government measures will certainly prevent the situation from reaching this level.
In addition, there are rumors that in some regions of the Russian Federation there is a shortage of fuel, which may make it difficult for farmers to harvest crops.
So far, sugar prices have even decreased slightly, the decrease was about 2%.
However, recently we have seen a rush of demand for sugar on the stock exchange, which was preceded by several weeks of relative calm.
Now experts are thinking about what this might be connected with: are we dealing with the usual “game of speculators”, or the market has really revived and demand has increased.
In the second case, we get an additional reason for prices to rise.
However, experts believe that sugar factories are starting to actively work right now, so soon a large wave of “new crop” sugar will hit the market, which should reduce prices in the short term.
