ISLAMABAD: Sugarcane crop would be cultivated over 1.1642 million hectares of land across the country during crop sowing season 2017-18 in order to fulfil the domestic requirements of sugar as well as for exporting.
Sugarcane production targets have been fixed at 68.517 million tons during the period under review for getting an average yield of 58,824 kg per hectare, said an official in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research.
He said that in Punjab Province sugarcane crop would be cultivated over 0.728 million hectares of land to produce about 44.00 million tons of the commodity. In Punjab, average yield per hectare has been fixed at 60,439.6 kg for getting the maximum output by using the crop efficient technologies, he added.
Meanwhile, the crop would be cultivated over 0.320 million hectares of land to produce 19.0 million tons of sugarcane by producing an average 59,375 kg crop per hectare, he added. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, the sugarcane to be cultivated over 115,000 hectares and 0.7 thousand hectares of land respectively.
He said that the crop output targets for both the provinces were fixed at 5.482 million tons and 3.50 million tons respectively. The average yield per hectare in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were fixed at 47,470 kg and 50,000 kg respectively, he added.
It may be recalled that during same period last year, the sugarcane crop production targets had fixed at 67.535 million by cultivating the crop over an area of 1.125 million hectares. According to the data of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, about 123,443 metric tons of sugar worth US$ 66.966 million was exported from the country during last 9 months of current financial year as compared the exports of the corresponding period of last year. The sugar export during first three quarters of last financial year was recorded at 293,541 metric tons valuing US$ 132.284 million.
During the month of March, 2017 country earned US$ 57.742 million by exporting about 107,558 metric tons of the sugar from the country.
Sugar export on month on month basis grew by 1.60 percent in month of March as compared the same month of last year, it added.
