A review on growth and production of sugar beet crops in Iran during the recent years

In 2006 the sugar beet crop production inIranwas largest ever.  In this year, 6,603,383 t with average sugar content of 16.84% delivered to the 32 sugar factories during five months of the campaign. From begining of the campaign until early–November there was balance between the amount of sugar beet delivered and that of processed by the sugar factories.  However, delivered beet to the factories exceeded than that processed by the factories during late–November and early–December, mostly due to risk of being frozen. Therefore, storage beets in the factories were 1,500,000 t for ten days in early–December.  The amount of delivered beet in 2006 was 35% larger than that in 2005 (4,896,835 t), but the average sugar content was 1.5% less.  The highest sugar content was recorded in theFarsprovince.  During the campaign of 2006, beet juice purity showed reduction pattern.  In addition, due to limitation in the capacity of some sugar factories, amount of 1,118,500 t sugar beets were transported on average 422 km from one province to another.  For this transportation, about 100,000 trucks were used to travel on average 400 km and approximately 17,000,000 litters fuel were consumed.  In general, it is necessary to manage the harvesting sugar beet and their delivery to the factory, to minimize sugar beet losses during the campaign.
Sugar beet crop in 2007 was reduced significantly in comparison to the 2006 campaign.  The sugar beet growers were decreased by 24% from 86,948 in 2006 to 64,109 in 2007.  In addition, the contract area for growing sugar beet in 2007 reduced by 32% from 213,226 ha to 150,663 hain 2006; and the growing area of national beet crop in 2007 reduced by 29% from 179,209 ha to 139,954 ha in 2006.  The growing area of monogerm varieties reached to the largest record of 130,000 ha (approximately 72% of total area), showing development of growing mechanized sugar beet inIran.  Although, total area of sugar beet reduced in 2007, but the proportion of growing monogerm sugar beet was around 74% of total beet cultivated area. 
Harvest and delivery of sugar beet in the campaign of 2007 started from early-October with two weeks delay compared to the previous year.  Total sugar beet production in 2007 was 4,245,161 t and in comparison to the 2006 campaign (6,603,383 t) reduced by 36% equal to 2.4 million tons.  Average sugar content in 2007 was the largest ever, reached to 18.35% and comparing to previous year increased by 1.51 units. The reasons of increasing sugar content in 2007 was probably cool weather during the summer and constantly reduction of the national incidence of Rhizomania diseases and also less rainfall during the harvest period and consequently more root dehydration. More increase in the average of sugar content and relatively less increase in the average of raw juice purity in the campaign of 2007 may confirm this reason.
Total national needs of importing sugar inIranis annually between 500 to 600 thousands tons.  Unfortunately, in 2006 around 2.5 million tons sugar imported from abroad by decision of omitting the customs tariff of sugar import.  As a consequence of importing large amount of sugar, national sugar markets were affected badly.  Therefore, tendency of farmers to sign contracts with sugar factories for growing sugar beet in the next year decreased dramatically.  Thus, production of national sugar beet was reduced in 2007, and the proportion of sugar beet within the arable crops maybe affected in the cultivation area.
In conclusion, to rescue the oldest sugar industry ofIranit is necessary to establish a powerful institution with organized and clear policy to manage and apply the following programs:
1. Production of high quality sugar beet and sugar cone as a raw material for sugar industries.
2. Increasing the efficiency of extracting sugar from beet and cane with minimum price.
3. Logical management of sugar imports and exports in order to control the national sugar market.