Delta Sugar looks to raise output as Egypt pushes sugar beet

CAIRO: Egypt's Delta Sugar hopes to produce 310,000 tonnes of sugar this year, the company's board chairman told Reuters, after the government expanded the area allotted for planting sugar beet as it tries to save water.

Egypt, which depends on the Nile for almost all its water, is trying to expand sugar beet planting as it consumes less water than cane, and has increased its cultivation area to 600,000 feddans (622,705 acres) from 485,000 feddans.

"Each feddan uses approximate 3.5 cubic feet of water, and sugar beet itself doesn't need to be planted in highly fertile soil ... which gives it a competitive edge [over other crops] to be planted in newly reclaimed land," Ahmed Abu al-Yazid said.

Delta, which says it is the Middle East's largest beet sugar producer, produced around 270,000-300,000 tonnes last year.

Egypt is trying to slash cultivation of water-intensive crops to conserve Nile river resources as Ethiopia prepares to fill the reservoir behind a colossal $4 billion dam it is building upstream and which Cairo worries could threaten its water stocks.

Egypt is also cracking down on unlicensed building on farmland, imposing fines of up to 5 million Egyptian pounds ($280,000) and a five-year jail term.

The cultivation of sugar beet is highly regulated, so authorities hope they can easily steer farmers to grow more.

Delta subsidises up to 80 percent of the cost of seeds, offers various bonuses, fertilisers and technical advice to farmers to encourage them to plant the crop.

"Sugar beet farming is the only agriculture in Egypt where a range of services is offered to the farmer by the end user like this, and it is because the factory is keen to receive its raw materials regularly," Abu al-Yazid said.

The North African country is expected to produce a total of about 1.4 million tonnes of sugar from sugar beet and around 1 million tonnes from cane this season, which runs from February to the end of June.

Delta says it has increased its own cultivation area to around 110,000 feddans this year from around 91,000 last year.

Abu al-Yazid expects that over the coming five years Egypt's total sugar beet cultivation area could reach 700,000-750,000 feddans. Egypt consumes about 3.3 million tonnes of sugar annually, 76 percent of which it produces domestically.