The annual sowing of sugar beets has finished in Turkmenistan.
Sugar beets cover almost 18 thousand hectares of land located in nine etraps (districts) of Mary velayat.
“Turkmenistan: golden age” reports that over 220 thousand tons of sugar beets are harvested every year from these farm lands, from which an average of 11 thousand tons of sugar is produced.
The aforementioned target was announced in 2016 but last October the country experienced a shortage of sugar when residents could buy no more than 1 kilo per person.
Sugar occasionally disappears from the counters of state-run stores.
It should be mentioned that even if the sugar beet yield plan is fulfilled, 2,2 kilos of domestically produced sugar will account for one resident per year ( where the harvested yield is divided by 5 million people). This is sufficient to make a two liter jar of apricot jam.
Sugar beets have been grown in Turkmenistan within the framework of the import substitution program.