India may be looking at a possibility of producing surplus sugar for at least two consecutive years, industry officials and sugar cultivators have said. More area being brought under sugar cultivation by millions and farmers and bountiful monsoon expected this season could bode well for the world’s second-largest sugar producer, enabling it to increase exports 2025-26. This comes after two years of export restrictions due to poor rainfall.
According to the All India Sugar Trade Association (AISTA), mills have exported a total of 5,16,782 tonnes of sugar till June 6 of the current marketing year. Out of these 5.16 lakh tonnes, white sugar exports were at 4.09 lakh tonnes, refined sugar 81,845 tonnes and raw sugar at 25,382 tonnes till June of this year.
The sugar marketing year runs from October to September. Sugar exports for the 2024-25 marketing year in India were allowed on January 20, 2025. The total quantity permitted for export is 10 lakh tonnes and about 23,219 tonnes of sugar are under loading, it said in a statement.
Of the total exports undertaken so far, maximum shipments have been to Somalia at 1,18,553 tonnes, followed by Sri Lanka at 76,401 tonnes, Afghanistan at 72,833 tonnes, and Djibouti at 69,609 tonnes.
AISTA had recently said that total sugar exports could touch 8,00,000 tonnes out of 10,00,000 permitted by the central government.
With Maharashtra – a leading sugar producing state in the south-west – and Karnataka, both received 1,007 per cent and 234 per cent more rainfall than average, respectively, this season, encouraging farmers to plant more sugarcane than usual. Since the sugarcane plant typically takes 10 to 18 months from planting to harvest, farmers who begin planting this month would be able to reap harvest during the 2026-27 season.
The National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories (NFCSF) estimates gross sugar production in 2025-26 to reach 35 million metric tons, nearly a fifth more from the previous year’s. Interestingly, India’s net sugar production is expected to fall below consumption for the first time in eight years in the 2024-25 marketing year till September.
From exporting merely 1 million tonnes of sugar in 2024-25 due to a 2023 drought that hit production, the country is now looking at exporting over 3 million tonnes in the next season, starting October.
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