Bumper boom for sugarcane growers, producers in Northern NSW
Northern Rivers cane farmers aren’t sugar-coating their success after celebrating record prices and a bumper 2024 crop.
Regional News
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An unusual late ending to the North Coast’s sugarcane season has brought with it a bumper crop and record cane prices for growers – talk about a sweet result.
Late last year, historical producers Sunshine Sugar – who are akin to the Norco of sugarcane – announced mills at Harwood, Broadwater and Condong had already crushed 860,000 tonnes of cane.
Despite wind and heavy rain interruptions to operations, 1.6 million tonnes of cane was crushed for the 2024 season compared to 1.1 million in 2023.
Sunshine Sugar chief executive officer Chris Connors said growers had also benefited from record cane prices between $59 and $63 per tonne – a trend he said will continue into 2025.
“The high and sustainable pricing is thanks to a strong hedge program along with the commencement of flood mitigation works at the Condong Sugar Mill following a $2m government project grant,” he said.
“The first phase of support under the anchor grant played an important role in our immediate efforts to get our three sugar mills up and running and our growers’ crops crushed as quickly as possible following the floods.
“The total cost of this phase was more than $40m, with the balance of funding coming from a combination of insurance and our own funds.
“The 2024 crushing season in NSW had a buoyant start, with some crops achieving yields as much as 20 per cent higher than forecast.
The Condong Mill in the Tweed Valley finished on December 13 having crushed just over 402,000 tonnes of sugarcane, of which, 22,000 tonnes of food grade raw and low-GI sugar was also produced.
Broadwater Mill ceased crushing on December 20, after crushing 520,000 tonnes of sugarcane for the season with the remaining 4,000 tonnes of crop harvested and transported to Harwood for processing.
In total, the Harwood Sugar Mill – which recently celebrated its 150 years of operation – crushed a total of 588,000 tonnes of sugarcane on January 7.
Sunshine Sugar expects to produce around 215,000 tonnes of white and caster sugar, along with food grade molasses and syrups.
Including 22,000 tonnes of DC raw and low-GI sugar, the producer has supplied a total of 235,000 tonnes of sugar into the domestic market.
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Originally published as Bumper boom for sugarcane growers, producers in Northern NSW
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