Dry weather in Brazil is reducing the sugar cane harvest: the forecast for the new season is below record levels.

Here are the forecasts for the new sugarcane crop in Brazil, which will start in April this year. According to these forecasts, it will be lower than the record previous crop due to unusually dry weather, which has affected the development of sugarcane in most of the Central-South region. This information is provided by the broker and analyst hEDGEpoint Global Markets, citing data from Nasdaq.

It is expected that the production volume of sugarcane in Brazil from April 2024 to March 2025 will be 620 million tonnes, slightly below the previous forecast of 640 million tonnes. Yield, which is the volume of sugarcane per hectare, is expected to decrease by 6% due to soil moisture deficiency.

However, the forecast for the current sugarcane crop in 2023/24 has been raised to 651.5 million tonnes. This is due to the dry weather forcing plants to extend the sugarcane processing period.

The broker is confident that the plants in the Central-South region will be able to process all available sugarcane stocks.

It was assumed that some sugarcane would remain unprocessed in the new season due to plant limitations.

The forecast for sugar production in the current crop has also been revised upwards to 42.2 million tonnes, with the export volume reaching 33 million tonnes.

In the new season, sugar production is expected to be at the level of 41.7 million tonnes.