The number of processing refineries remained unchanged — 33 sugar factories, as last year. But sugar beet processing campaign began 3 weeks later, compared to last year due to the drought in most regions of Ukraine, which complicated the harvesting process.

Sugar content decreased to 16,14% against 17,90% last year, and beet yield decreased to 42,5 t/ha (46,1 t/ha in 2019) due to unfavorable weather and climatic conditions during the growing season. Taking into account this factor, plus the reduction of sugar beet sown areas (216 thousand hectares this year against 222 thousand hectares in 2019), in 2020/2021 MY, Ukrainian sugar production decreased by 22,3% and amounted to 1,150 million tonnes.

The last three years have seen a reduction in sugar beet sown areas, and the number of operating factories has also been declining. As a result, we have a reduction in production and export potential: in 2018/2019 MY Ukrainian producers exported 409,8 thousand tonnes of sugar, but in 2019/2020 MY — only 103,6 thousand tonnes.

Given the global market trends and projected sugar shortage, we can predict that Ukrainian producers will try to regain their position in the international market and increase sugar production volumes, but it is too early to talk about the increasing sown areas as more exact predictions can be obtained before the start of spring field works.