Short note- Study of Iranian sugar industries at last four years

At the present time 33 sugar beet and 7 sugar cane industrial units are active in the country. In 2004, the national sugar production was about 1192 thousand tons, that 55 percent of it was produced from the sugar beet and the rest from the sugar cane. In this investigation the status of sugar beet root and sugar production during last 4 years is discussed. The theoretical capacity of 33 sugar industrial units is 67650 tons sugar beet root per day. With attention to 100 working days, the total consumption capacity of sugar beet root is about 6.75 million tons per year. Unfortunately, because of many reasons sugar beet production and consumption capacity have not reached to the optimum levels. The average sugar beet root production in last 10 years is 49830000 tons. Based on the published statistics by the association of sugar industrial units the ratio of purchased sugar beet root to the official capacity of the sugar industrial units is about 81 percent and the ratio of consumed sugar beet root to the official capacity of the sugar industrial units is about 67 percent. These facts show that although some problems exist in industry and agricultural sections however no clear solutions have been proposed. During agricultural year 2004 about 4913000 tons sugar beet root with 17.32 percent sugar content have been produced in 156000 hectares by 95000 farmers. Where, the total produced sugar was 659000 tons. In table 1 the average production of root and sugar during 4 years was demonstrated. Results of some investigations show that the yield of 30 tons per hectare is the border line to profit or loss. It is clear that cultivation of varieties with root production capacity less than 30 ton per hectare should not be recommended. Maybe over estimating of the land under sugar beet cultivation leads to wrong conclusion. So, real estimation of the land under sugar beet cultivation needs scientific method. In spite of existing suitable ecological and environmental condition for sugar beet cultivation in most regions because of using inaccurate method of soil management, ignorance of agronomical requirement aspects and lack of extinction to transfer the results of research to the farmers, the potential production has not been achieved yet. Evaluation of the data of the Iranian sugar industrial units shows considerable difference between their performances. The reasons could be insufficient payments at appropriate time to buy sugar beet root or other requirement of industrial sectors and old technology and production line. So, under this condition most of sugar industrial units could not achieve their theoretical capacity. In addition, about 4 percent of sugar beet root deteriorate in sugar industrial unit. Transporting sugar beet root from one area to the other area is another problem that sugar industries are put up with.