The 2026/27 season kicked off in full swing in Brazil's Center-South region, with mills processing 59.42 million tons of sugarcane in April, a 71.6% increase compared to a year ago and an absolute record for the month. According to DATAGRO, in addition to the increased number of mills that anticipated the start of operations, improved agricultural productivity also supported this positive initial performance, leading the consultancy to raise its estimate for sugarcane processing this season. In the most optimistic scenario, in which rainfall is not expected to interrupt operations for more than 29 days until December, sugarcane processing could reach 655 million tons in the 2026/27 season. If confirmed, this volume surpasses the previous record, established in the 2023/24 season, when 654.43 million tons of sugarcane were processed. In the least optimistic scenario, where El Niño reaches strong intensity at the end of the year, resulting in a large volume of sugarcane that is not harvested again, mills in the Center-South region are expected to process only 625 million tons of raw material in this cycle. In a central scenario, which considers 3 to 4 additional days of milling lost due to rain compared to the first scenario, sugarcane milling should reach 648.3 million tons, which would represent a 6.1% increase compared to the previous harvest. Regarding industrial yield, although ATR levels were good at the beginning of the 2026/27 harvest, DATAGRO warns of some factors that may limit it. Among them are above-normal rainfall between July and August, flowering outbreaks in some regions of São Paulo, and the finishing of the sugarcane due to winds and its own weight. Thus, an average yield of 137.88 kg ATR/tc is projected. The estimate for the sugar production mix remains at 48.5%, which should lead to sweetener production reaching 41.30 million tons in the 2026/27 harvest, a 2.2% increase compared to the previous cycle. The previous projection was for a balance of 40.98 million tons of sugar. Ethanol production – including biofuel derived from corn – should total 38.84 billion liters, a 15.2% increase compared to the last harvest.
This text was translated by machine from Brazilian Portuguese.