Agrana Starts Sugar Beet Campaigns

04/10/07 This year's sugar beet campaign in Austria starts at the refineries in Tulln and Leopoldsdorf.

In terms of weather conditions, the growing season in Austria was very similar to those in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and the Czech Republic. The first months after planting were exceptionally dry. The situation eased only marginally in June and July following some precipitation. Extremely dry areas - particularly those in Romania and Hungary - experienced temperatures of 350C and above, which led to increased crop damage due to lack of water. Heavy rains in early September led to a significant improvement in conditions in the majority of beet growing areas.

"Based on slightly below average yields per hectare of around 64 tonnes of sugar beet, the harvest in Austria this year will amount to around 2.75 million tonnes", was how Johann Marihart, CEO of AGRANA, assessed this year's harvesting forecast.

This follows 2.5 million tonnes the previous year. Assuming average sugar contents, the sugar yield is expected to be around 435,000 tonnes (2005: 407,600 tonnes).

The amount of sugar (around 84,000 tonnes) in excess of the approved sugar quota for Austria, set at 351,027 tonnes, will be supplied to the chemical industry as industrial sugar. Some, in the form of concentrated sugar beet juice, will be used in the production of bioethanol. The remaining amount can be carried forward into the 2008|2009 financial year.

During its session on 26 September 2007, The European Council of Agriculture Ministers approved a reform of the sugar market regime put forward by the European Commission. This aims to further boost the appeal of the restructuring fund and make it possible to buy-back a total of six million tonnes of sugar quotas.

The previous level of quota returns, 2.3 million tonnes, must now be supplemented by quota returns from competitive regions. AGRANA will also sell a proportion of its quotas in markets where it has subsidiaries.

Capital investments at the two Austrian facilities in Leopoldsdorf and Tulln are expected to total around #4.5m in the 2008|2009 financial period. The main focus of these investments will be in the areas of energy efficiency and necessary plant renewals.

Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania

The Hungarian sugar refineries in Kaposvar and Petöhaza are scheduled to begin processing sugar beet on 10 October, and are forecast to produce a total of 119,000 tonnes of white sugar obtained from around 805,000 tonnes of sugar beet.

This compares with figures of 150,229 and 991,476 tonnes respectively in the prior period. Due to the dry weather conditions, it appears unlikely that it will be possible to reach the quota of 142,689 tonnes.

At the AGRANA production facilities in the Czech Republic at Hrusovany and Opava, the sugar beet harvest is forecast to be 665,000 tonnes (prior year: 636,459t) from which an estimated 106,000 tonnes of sugar (prior year: 107,320t) will be produced.

The quota for the Czech Republic for 2007|2008 amounts to 83,582 tonnes. The processing of sugar beet started in Opava on 17 September, while the campaign in Hrusovany is scheduled to begin on 5 October.

The sugar campaign in Slovakia also got underway on 17 September. Here the harvest is expected to provide approximately 403,000 tonnes (prior year: 324,782t) of sugar beet which is estimated to yield around 56,000 (46,311) tonnes of sugar. It will be possible to supplement the sugar beet quota of 56,837 tonnes using the excess from the 2006|2007 quota.

Based on a cultivated area of 6,800 hectares, the Romanian harvest is forecast to provide around 170,000 tonnes of sugar beet. The Romanian sugar beet quota amounts to 20,968 tonnes. In addition to 21,000 (38,040) tonnes obtained from sugar beet, AGRANA plans to produce around 143,000 tonnes of refined sugar from raw sugar.

"This year, the entire AGRANA group will produce around 737,000 tonnes of sugar from 4.84 million tonnes of sugar beet. Including the refining of 143,000 tonnes of raw sugar, the forecast quantity of sugar will amount to just under 880,000 tonnes and is therefore higher than the quota for 2007|2008*  of 785,771 tonnes", Marihart adds.

Starch potato campaign

The AGRANA plant in Gmünd, Austria, began processing starch potatoes from this year's harvest on 27 August. The yield of around 185,000 tonnes is on a par with the previous period (187,000 tonnes).

The lower starch content is expected to yield approximately 40,000 tonnes of potato starch compared with 41,123 tonnes in the previous year. The Austrian potato starch quota is 47,691 tonnes.