455 words / 3 minute reading time

Frost has hit key Yunnan cane regions, responsible for 21% of Chinese cane production.
It has damaged the cane but we expect only a 50k tonne reduction in sugar production.
Most importantly, it could reduce next season’s production as the damaged cane will reduce the amount of available seed and ratoon cane.

Yunnan Frost Leads To Cane Losses

The frosty weather has continued for two weeks in Yunnan and dry weather will only make the frost worse for the cane.
So far, Yunnan has reported a loss of 300k tonnes of cane, which means the sugar loss will be less than 50k tonnes.

The badly damaged cane may dry up, rot or turn black.
The sucrose content of such cane will drop 1-2% and must be harvested and processed immediately.
Therefore, the sugar production of the present season may not necessarily reduce as more cane will need to be harvested.
But the next crop could be affected due to the damaged ratoon and reduced cane seeds.

Guangxi Can Handle Frost Crisis

Guangxi first reported frost on December 8^th but the temperature climbed up to normal range after a week (the blue colour on the temperature map represents a lower than normal temperature).
The period is too short to cause a serious damage and mildly damaged canes would recover soon in the warmer weather.
Comparing to 07/08 season, the cane varieties have changed significantly and the new varieties are more frost-resistant.
Guangxi’s crushing capacity is 10% higher than 07/08 season, which means the crushing of damaged cane is more efficient.

Historical Frost Disasters

Frost is a normal weather phenomenon in the winter and spring for Guangxi and Yunnan, i.e. 90% of Chinese cane regions, due to the southward direction of cold air from Siberia.
It takes three conditions for frost to damage canes:

A broad daily temperature difference.
The minimum temperature being close to zero or lower.
Such weather conditions must persist for more than three days.

The severest frost disasters happened in 1999/00, 2007/08 and 2013/14 seasons, causing cane losses of 5m tonnes (Guangxi), 5.6m tonnes (Guangxi) and 1.7mm tonnes (Yunnan) respectively.
We have also seen a significant reduction of sugar production in the next season due to the damage on ratoon.

Chinese Cane Acreage and Cane Sugar Production

A Structural Deficit

We currently estimate 19/20’s total sugar production to be 10.5m tonnes, 260k tonnes lower than last season, 4.8m tonnes lower than consumption.
The bad weather may reduce the sugar production and therefore increase the deficit.
So far, the frost impact is in the normal range.

Chinese Sugar Production by Region

Rosa Li

Rosa graduated from Jinan University in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in Marketing. Rosa joined CZ in 2014 and has been an analyst for 7 years in our Guangzhou office managing the data capture, analysis and visualisation within the Chinese sugar markets utilising her skills in SQL, Python and VBA while also providing content for our platform CZ App. Rosa is also responsible for the localization of CZ App in China – CZ App WeChat, she also assists with the commercial marketing in China and works towards strategy with the trading team.