| OCR Text |
Show Sugar Suplies Will Be Lower Civilian supplies of sugar will be lower in 1944 than in 1943 due to the use of sugarcane molasses for industrial alcohol, to the increased needs of our armed forces and allies, and to wartime shipping conditions, Joseph Skeen, member of the Utah State AAA Committee Commit-tee said Saturday. The total allocation allo-cation of sugar for all civilian uses in 1944 is 5,074,906 short tons raw basis a reduction of about 6 percent below the 5,400,000 tons consumed last year. The tremendous demand for industrial in-dustrial alcohol, particularly for the manufacture of synthetic rubber rub-ber and other products vitally needed in the war effort, Is almost 50 percent above that of 1943 and 180 percent greater than in 1942. This will make it necessary to employ a quantity of 1944 Cuban crop sugarcane equivalent to 800,-000 800,-000 tons of sugar for the manufacture manu-facture of invert molasses for the alcohol program, and to set aside as a reserve an additional 200,000 tons of Cuban raw sugar for the same purpose, Mr. Skeen explained. explain-ed. In 1943, grains furnished the bulk of the raw material needed to make alcohol. However, the expanded ex-panded alcohol program, coupled with the need for conserving grains for food and feed, requires the production of invert' or high-test molasses from which no sugar is extracted and which therefore yields much more alcohol than does blackstrap molasses, a byproduct by-product in the making of sugar. Moreover, the supply of black- strap is sufficient to meet only a relatively small portion of the increased in-creased production of alcohol needed for war purposes. The total quantity of sugar allocated al-located for 1944 is 6,529,098 tons. Most of the difference of 1,454,192 tons between the grand total and the civilian share of 5,074,906 tons has been allocated to our armed forces and allies, while 200,000 tons are reserved for the alcohol program (in addition to the 800,- 000 tons in the form of invert molasses). The sugar allocated for non-civilian non-civilian uses during the first half of 1944 includes 350,938 tons for direct use as sugar and 222,642 tons for indirect uses, such as in processed foods. Included in the sugar for direct use are 269,378 tons for the armed forces and war services and 79,618 tons for our allies and other friendly nations, the liberated areas, our territories, territor-ies, and the Red Cross. The grand total of 6,529,098 tons is made up of a carryover of approximately ap-proximately 1,800,000 tons in continental con-tinental United States on January Janu-ary 1, 1944, an anticipated mainland main-land production of 1,775,000 tons, and 4,561,000 tons of expected receipts re-ceipts from insular' areas, less a carryover of 1,607,000 tons at the beginning of 1945. Such a January 1 operating stock on the mainland main-land would be the smallest in more than a decade. More than half a million tons of sugar in offshore areas has been excluded from the total of expected imports to the United States, because this sugar may go direct from the producing pro-ducing areas to Russia, French North Africa and French West Africa. In view of the domination by the Nazis of most of the world's production of beet sugiar and by the Japanese of the cane sugar producing areas of the Far East, the sugar import requirements of the United Kingdom, Canada, and Russia, must largely be met by Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti and other islands in the Caribbean Carib-bean area. Sources of Our Sugar Normally, approximately 30 per cent of the sugiar consumed in the continental United States is produced pro-duced on the mainland, of which roughly three-quarters comes from the sugar beet-growing states in the Midwest and West and the remainder from the mainland cane sugar area of Louisiana and Florida. Beet sugar production declined de-clined hi 1943 but production in the mainland cane area, on the other hand, increased somewhat as a result of a larger crop in Louisiana. The remainder of our sugar requirements re-quirements in normal times is met almost entirely by Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Cuba and the Commonwealth Common-wealth of the Philippines. The loss of the Philippines in 1942 end thc decline in beet sugar production pro-duction in 1943 have increased greatly dopendence on Cuba and other offshore areas. The 1942, 1943 and 1944 Cuban crops have ail I been purchased virtually in their entirety by the United States Government. The Island of Cuba this year is expected to produce approximately 4,000,000 tons of sugar, of which aU but about 200,-000 200,-000 tons have been bought by the United States Government. As already al-ready indicated, another 800,000 tons of sugar would be produced in 1944 but for the diversion of sugarcane to the production of high-test molasses for the indus-vtrial indus-vtrial alcohol program. ' Production in Puerto Rico and |
