Developing cane supply and harvesting schedules that enhance whole industry profitability

An important question for sugar industries worldwide is, "What opportunitie s exist for modified cane supply and harvest scheduling arrangements to enh ance whole industry profitability and competitiveness?" This is a complex i ssue, especially with vertical and horizontal expansion in production where consideration of crushing capacity and harvest season length are necessary . Given this complexity and the need to consider on-farm consequences on pr oductivity and off-farm constraints related to transport, milling and stora ge capacity, this paper outlines a research approach to assess the conseque nces of different harvest scheduling options that integrate across the indu stry value chain. The approach has two key features: (i) multidisciplinary research integrati ng database technology, field experimentation, crop growth simulation model ling and operations research; and (ii) strong participation from industry ( growers and millers) at all stages of the research process from initiation to delivery. Through case studies for several locations in the Australian s ugar industry, it is shown that manipulation of cane supply scheduling offe rs the potential to substantially increase mill region net revenue by takin g into account spatial and temporal variation in cane yield parameters.