FAO will update figures on sugar

Sep 19, 2006

SIR — I had sent the Statistics Division of FAO in Rome a copy of my letter to you dated September 5 entitled “Correcting misinformation of Uganda’s sugar industry”.

SIR — I had sent the Statistics Division of FAO in Rome a copy of my letter to you dated September 5 entitled “Correcting misinformation of Uganda’s sugar industry”.

Haluk Kasnakoglu, Director, Statistics Division, FAO-Rome has responded to me confirming that :
lFAO’s data-base on sugarcane crop production statistics in Uganda is not up-to-date and
lFAO will be updating their data-base considering the information that I provided together with information on earlier years that is to be sent to FAO by the Uganda Sugar Cane Technologists Association [USCTA].

To quote from Haluk Kasnakoglu’s e-mail :
“For crop production statistics, our official contact in your country is the UBOS - Uganda Bureau of Statistics (http://www.ubos.org/). We used to get their data from their Statistical Abstracts.

Unfortunately, concerning sugar statistics, these reports show only the sugar production of selected establishments (cfr the Table 3.4 C, page 180, of the 2005 latest edition: http://www.ubos.org/2005StatAbstract.pdf ).

Sugar cane production, or total production of cane sugar are not reported there. Our recent questionnaires sent annually to them have never updated us about this. The only official data (area and production) that we have on sugar cane in Uganda have been recorded during the 70's, showing a yield of about 20 Kg/ha.

Since then, estimates have been done in respect of that level and based on the production of cane sugar obtained from semi-official sources (F.O. Licht's International Sugar and Sweetener report) and applying an extraction rate of about 10%. Licht's latest data are well in line with what you are reporting in the attachment of your message.Therefore, we are now more than delighted to be informed that you have more accurate, updated and very detailed data on sugar industry in Uganda.

However, in order to allow us to correct and update accordingly our database more properly, we would highly appreciate it if you kindly provide us with the whole related time series data (the existing time series as long as possible) that you may have : area harvested, yield and production of sugarcane, production and extraction rates of sugar raw, etc.”

The information on sugarcane in Uganda in the 1970s available to FAO would certainly have shown low yields during the period of economic uncertainty under the Amin regime. FAO has also reconfirmed that the data provided by KSW is in line with semi-official sugar industry sources (e.g. F.O. Licht). We trust this will now clearly establish the efficiency of the performance of the Ugandan sugar industry.

Farhan Nakhooda
Projects Director - Kakira Sugar Works (1985) Limited

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