Improving the economic competitiveness of the Australian Sugar Industry

The Australian Sugar Industry is at present weathering a difficult period. Floods, drought, pests and diseases have reduced production and incomes are affected by low world sugar prices. The industry is putting in place initiatives to reduce costs and spread its range of products. At farm level, initiatives that are being taken up or considered are expansion of farm scale, new techniques for transfer of best practice and new farming systems involving controlled traffic, soy bean fallows and higher density planting. At the grower/miller interface, best practice harvesting can reduce loss, and harvest scheduling can increase sugar content by taking cane from throughout each region at the most appropriate time. Longer hours of harvest would improve capital utilisation. Although there is considerable activity in seeking opportunities in value adding, these appear limited. Ethanol is seen as the most likely diversification but its development will depend on government mandate. Other value adding proposals are discussed. The paper examines some of the constraints to these innovations and concludes that further development of a value chain approach win be beneficial in improving the Australian industry's competitiveness. Current approaches to adoption of the above ideas are discussed.