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Main destinations of Guatemalan Sugar

Main destinations of Guatemalan Sugar

Guatemalan Sugar was exported to 59 countries and regions on 5 continents in 2020; and it ranks as the sixth export product of the country according to data from the Guatemalan Central Bank (Banguat).

Guatemala exports 70% of its total sugar production, the remaining 30% is fortified with vitamin A and remains in the country to supply local consumption.

The Guatemalan Sugar Industry produces natural sugar that comes from sugarcane plants grown on farms and has minimal processing.

In the top 3 destinations of Guatemalan sugar are countries of the American continent: Canada 256.4 million kilograms (256,351 MT), the United States 189 million kilograms (188,966 MT) and Chile 184.2 million kilograms.

The top 10 destinations of Guatemalan sugar

Main countries of each continent

The sugar produced in Guatemala was exported to all continents in 2020 according to Banguat.

sugar produced in Guatemala was exported to all continents

More than 50% of the sugar that leaves Guatemala is exported to countries on the American continent, in addition to Canada, the United States and Chile, Haiti 83.8 million kilograms (83,754 MT) and Peru 53.3 million kilograms (53,263 MT) complete the top 5.

In the case of the Asian continent, Taiwan is placed in the first position with 130 million kilograms of sugar (130,202 MT), South Korea in second place with 62.6 million kilograms (62,619 MT) and Malaysia in third place imported 46.8 million kilograms (46,830 MT).

Ivory Coast is the main country to which sugar is exported from Guatemala on the African continent with 70.1 million kilograms (70,068 MT), followed by Mauritania with 45 million kilograms (44,994 MT) and very close is Ghana 44.9 million kilograms (44,899 MT).

In Europe, Spain is the country that leads the import of Guatemalan sugar with 37 million kilograms (36,983 MT) followed by Portugal 19 million kilograms (18,882 MT) and Italy 15.3 million kilograms (15,309 MT).

And in Oceania, most of the sugar from Guatemala reaches New Zealand 60.5 million kilograms (60,500 MT) and only about 675 kilograms (0.68 TM) reaches Australia.

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The Guatemalan Sugar Industry has build internal roads to transport sugarcane

The Guatemalan Sugar Industry has build internal roads to transport sugarcane

The Guatemalan Sugar Industry has created an internal network of roads that benefits dozens of communities on the South of the country. Currently, more than 83% of the sugarcane is transported by internal roads.

Internal roads are those that go between the sugarcane fields and that communicate with the factories. These internal roads help to reduce the circulation of trucks loaded with sugarcane on national routes, while serving communities as an alternative road.

There are more than 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) of internal roads that the Guatemalan Sugar Industry has built and receive maintenance year after year, helping to significantly reduce the traffic of sugarcane on national highways.

Actions for responsible transport

Among the actions for a responsible transport is also the control and monitoring of the speed of the cane transport. The maximum speed in communities and school zones is 20 km/h (12 mph) and 40 km/h (25 mph) on internal roads.

There are also signalmen or flaggers in the sections where the sugarcane transport crosses the roads to avoid accidents.

Thanks to an agreement between the Guatemalan Sugar Industry and the Technical Training Institute -Intecap-, all pilots who transport sugarcane are trained and certified by said institution to guarantee that they have the skills to perform the task.

In addition, more and more women are joining the pilots’ workforce, which contributes to the inclusion of women in agricultural operations.

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“Better families” a social program developed by the Guatemalan Sugar Industry will be implemented by local governments

"Better families" a social program developed by the Guatemalan Sugar Industry that promotes food and nutritional security, will be implemented by local governments

The Guatemalan Sugar Industry, through their Sugar Foundation – Fundazucar-, signed a cooperation agreement with municipal authorities of the sixth bigger department of Guatemala, called Escuintla for the transfer of the methodology of the Better Families program, which promotes food security and nutrition, as well as the empowerment of women as agents of change and catalyst for development.

"Better families" a social program developed by the Guatemalan Sugar Industry that promotes food and nutritional security, will be implemented by local governments

Better Families is a program certified by the Guatemalan Ministry of Education and promotes the training of women for behavior change from the individual, family and community level, recognizing in her a key agent to promote the improvement of health and nutritional status of the family, especially of the children.

The Better Families program has empowered and trained more than 532,000 women since its implementation in 1998. Due to the positive results, it was transferred to the Government of Honduras and was implemented twice as a public policy of the State in Guatemala. Likewise, 14 companies, foundations and international organizations have carried it out in different areas of the country with the aim of reducing chronic child malnutrition.

"Better families" a social program developed by the Guatemalan Sugar Industry that promotes food and nutritional security, will be implemented by local governments

The objective of this cooperation agreement is to replicate this social program that provides education to women, so they get to know practices for the proper selection, preparation, and consumption of food. As well as educating mothers in preventive health with sustainable actions to improve the conditions of their children, family, and community. Through this program, the implementation of inter-institutional coordination mechanisms for Food and Nutrition Security in the signatory municipalities is facilitated.

The agreement was signed by the mayors of four municipalities of the Department of Escuintla in the South of Guatemala, as well as by Luis Miguel Paiz, General Manager of the Guatemalan Sugar Producers Association and Maria Silvia Pineda Molina, Executive Director of Fundazucar.

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For the first time a Guatemalan variety of sugarcane leads the Guatemalan Sugar Industry

Sugarcane is researched by dedicated scientists at the Guatemalan Center for Research and Training of Sugar Cane -Cengicaña-; created with the aim of improving production and productivity of sugarcane and its byproducts.

Cengicaña published its Annual Report 2019-2020, in which the results of the investigations, projects and activities that were carried out in the last year are presented. One of the relevant results is that the varietal composition of the Guatemalan Sugar Industry is now led by a Guatemalan variety.

The CG02-163 variety is now the one with the most planted area in Guatemala, after 18 years of being released by Cengicaña, relegating the CP72-2086 variety from Florida, United States to second place. It is expected that over the years the varieties developed by Cengicaña will relegate foreign varieties in the varietal composition of national cane.

The annual report can be downloaded in Spanish on the Cengicaña website: https://cengicana.org/publicaciones# .

The Variety Program contributes to increasing the Guatemalan Sugar Industry productivity through the development of new varieties of sugarcane. These varieties are of high sugar yield per unit area, resistant to diseases and with agro-industrial characteristics and adequate adaptability to the different environmental conditions of the Guatemalan sugarcane zone.