Bengaluru: India’s sugar production is expected to rise sharply in the 2025-26 marketing year starting October, thanks to better rainfall in 2024 and an increase in the area under sugarcane cultivation. The USDA’s local office in Delhi has projected sugar output to reach 35 million tonnes (raw value), marking a 26% increase from the current year’s revised estimate of 28 million tonnes, reports The Hindu Businessline.
Sugar production had dropped in the 2023-24 season due to the effects of El Niño and limited water availability for irrigation. The new forecast of 35 million tonnes translates to around 33 million tonnes of crystal sugar, including 60,000 tonnes of traditional sweetener khandsari.
The improvement is largely due to the 2024 monsoon, which helped restore groundwater levels and reservoirs in major sugarcane-producing states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh. The strong rains have also encouraged farmers in these states to expand their cane planting, which had suffered in the past two years due to drought and pest issues. Sugarcane takes 12 to 14 months to mature in India.
According to the USDA, the sugarcane area is expected to increase by 9%, from 5.36 million hectares last year to 5.85 million hectares in 2025-26. Total cane output is likely to rise by 7% to 465 million tonnes, up from 435 million tonnes last year. Of this, around 370 million tonnes of cane is expected to be used for sugar production, compared to 341 million tonnes the year before.
The USDA also forecasts an increase in sugar recovery rate—the amount of sugar extracted from cane—from 8% to 9.5%, helped by improved water availability and better cane quality. This would represent a 19% rise in sugar recovery from the current season.
Prakash Naiknavare, Managing Director of the National Federation of Co-operative Sugar Factories, said that both sugarcane and sugar output are expected to go up by about 20–25%. He pointed out that timely rainfall and the government’s early announcement of the sugarcane price have played a key role.
“The higher cane price announced in April gave farmers confidence and enough time to plan for the next season,” Naiknavare said. “This has led to more planting, and better rainfall has supported it.”
The government has increased the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) for the 2025-26 sugar season to ₹355 per quintal, a 4.4% increase from last year.
The Indian Sugar and Bio-Energy Manufacturers Association (ISMA) also expressed confidence about the upcoming season. “With the good rains in 2024 and more planting in Maharashtra and Karnataka, we are expecting a smooth start to the crushing season in October 2025,” ISMA said in a statement released in March.
In northern states like Uttar Pradesh, efforts to replace older sugarcane varieties with higher-yielding ones are starting to show results, which is expected to further boost production and sugar recovery rates.
On the demand side, the USDA estimates that domestic sugar consumption will rise to 31 million tonnes in 2025-26, up from 29.5 million tonnes this year. The increase is linked to steady growth in the food and hospitality sectors.
In addition, the government has increased the allocation of rice for ethanol production to 52 lakh tonnes, which may help manage sugar stocks by diverting some production toward biofuel.
