Sugar beet harvest increase in 1999-2000 campaign

The harvest of sugar beets is expected to reach 850,000 to 900,000 tons this year in the Gharb and Loukkos regions (western and northern Morocco).

The announcement was made by the general manager of the Gharb & Loukkos group of beet sugar refineries "Sunabel SA" who said the previous campaign production stood at 658 tons.

Sunabel's manager told L'Opinion daily that the increase is the result of a series of measures adopted by the group in cooperation with the concerned ministerial departments to encourage sugar beet growers. Among the measures, he mentioned production bonuses, financing of irrigation systems and rescheduling of farmers' debts.

Sunabel group operates four sugar refineries with a total processing capacity of 1.2 million tons of beet and a production of 160,000 tons of refined sugar, 84,000 tons of pellets and 60,000 tons of molasses. The refineries have however never exceeded 62% of their processing and production capacity over the past thirty years because of irregularity of beet supply.