The 2019/2020 harvest in the Center-South of Brazil ends with 589.90 million tons of processed sugarcane, an increase of almost 3% over the 573.17 million tons registered in the 2018/2019 season. “This expansion of the grinding, simultaneously improving the quality of the raw material, reflected in the greater availability of the product, mainly converted into ethanol”, says Antonio de Pádua Rodrigues, technical director of the Sugarcane Industry Union (UNICA) . The quality of the raw material increased to 138.57 kg of Total Recoverable Sugars (ATR) per ton of sugarcane, against 137.88 kg in the 2018/2019 cycle. This growth, in line with the higher crushing, resulted in an increase of 3.43% in the global quantity of products available, which added up to 81.74 million tons of ATR. Only 34.32% of this amount was used for sugar production, the lowest percentage of the last 22 years. With that, the manufacturing of the commodity reached 26.73 million tons, similar to the 26.51 million tons in the 2018/2019 harvest. Ethanol production was the highest in the history of the sugar-energy sector: 33.24 billion liters – 9.94 billion liters of anhydrous ethanol and 23.30 billion liters of hydrous ethanol. The previous record, observed in the last harvest, was 30.95 billion liters. This volume incorporates the production of 1.62 billion liters of corn ethanol, a value that is also the highest ever recorded. In the 2018/2019 harvest, this figure reached 791.43 million liters. Regarding the number of units in operation in the Center-South, UNICA counts 267 plants with productive activity in the 2019/2020 season.
Source: Jornal Cana