SATARA, India -India is set to produce surplus sugar for at least two consecutive years, as millions of farmers expand the area under sugarcane cultivation amid ample rainfall, boosting crop yields, growers and industry officials said.
The rebound in production would allow the world's second-largest sugar producer to increase exports in 2025/26, they said, after poor rainfall cut sugarcane yields and led to two years of export restrictions.
"Sugarcane usually gives us good returns, but sometimes we can't plant it due to a lack of water," said Umesh Jagtap as he planted the crop on a three-acre plot in Maharashtra, a leading sugar producing state in the west.
"This year, we had heavy rain in May, and the forecast says more rain is on the way. So we're planning to plant more than usual."
Farmers from Maharashtra and neighbouring Karnataka struggle to irrigate their sugarcane crop in May. This year, however, Maharashtra and Karnataka received 1,007% and 234% more rainfall than average, respectively.
The rainfall will benefit the crop to be harvested in the 2025/26 season, starting October, and will also support planting for the 2026/27 harvest, said Prakash Naiknavare, managing director of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories (NFCSF).
Sugarcane typically takes 10 to 18 months from planting to harvest. As a result, farmers who began planting this month are expected to harvest their crop during the 2026/27 season.
The NFCSF estimates gross sugar production in 2025/26 to rise by nearly a fifth from a year earlier, reaching 35 million metric tons.
For the 2024/25 marketing year to September, India's net sugar production is expected to fall below consumption for the first time in eight years.
This decline stems from a 2023 drought that hit sugarcane planting and forced India to prohibit sugar exports in 2023/24 and allowing merely 1 million tons in 2024/25.
India was the world's No. 2 sugar exporter during the five years to 2022/23, with volumes averaging 6.8 million tons annually.
"Looks like production is set to bounce back strongly, so New Delhi will probably have no trouble allowing exports of over 3 million tons in the next season starting October," said a Mumbai-based trader with a global trade house.
