Sao Paulo, Oct 20 - Domestic sugar deficits in India should end in the 2010/11 Oct-Sept crop year and the world's No. 2 producer after Brazil should resume exporting if conditions are right, an Indian government official said on Tuesday.
Abinash Verma of India's Department of Food and Public Distribution contended that the country could produce 26 million tonnes in 2010/11, up sharply from 18 million tonnes forecast for the current season.
Other analysts at the International Sugar and Ethanol Conference had more modest forecasts for future Indian sugar production.
A host of factors will determine India's sugar harvest a year from now, mainly the weather and government intervention. But a global sugar deficit has helped push world prices up near 28-year highs, spurring growers to plant more cane.
India could export 1 million tonnes of refined sugar in 2010/11, Verma said at the second day of the conference in Sao Paulo, hosted by analysts Datagro during Brazil's biennial Sugar Dinner Week.
Verma said his estimate depended on a return to a "normal" level of production of jaggery -- a cheap, unrefined sugar product consumed in India and Brazil, which is produced by evaporating water off the cane sap.
Production deficits in India, the world's second most populous nation and largest global sugar consumer, were one of the main reasons for a world shortfall in supplies that set off a rally in sugar futures that saw prices double this year.
New York March sugar futures were trading about half a cent lower at 23.65 per lb by 1425 GMT on Tuesday.
India's domestic consumption of sugar in 2009/10 is forecast at 23.5 million tonnes and at 24.5 million tonnes in the following 2010/11 season, Verma said.
He added that sugar production in 2008/09 was estimated at 15 million tonnes compared with domestic consumption of 22.5 million tonnes. The government had sought to close that gap with time limits on holding stocks and forcing some beverage makers to rely on imported supplies, he said.
Other analysts have been working with much lower figures for future Indian production. Peter Baron, executive director at the International Sugar Organization, said there were too many variables to give an accurate estimate as far ahead as 2010/11 but offered a figure of 20 million to 22 million tonnes.
Analyst Jonathan Kingsman said India's estimate was "way too high", adding 20 million tonnes would be a more likely forecast.
Baron, who spoke earlier on Tuesday at the event, left the ISO's September forecast for the 2009/10 global sugar supply deficit unchanged at 8.4 million tonnes, down from the 10.4 million tonne deficit seen in 2008/09.