Abstract

AGUILAR RIVERA, Noé; GALINDO MENDOZA, Guadalupe; FORTANELLI MARTINEZ, Javier  and  CONTRERAS SERVIN, Carlos. Factores de competitividad de la agroindustria de la caña de azúcar en México. Región y sociedad [online]. 2011, vol.23, n.52, pp.261-297. ISSN 2448-4849.

The Mexican sugar industry has a long history. It is an industry which combines the agricultural activities of growing, harvesting and transporting sugarcane with the industrial factory production of raw and refined sugar and many specialty and downstream products. To compete in a global economy, it is important to establish performance criteria/benchmarks for the purpose of achieving lowestcost sugar production in terms of technical competitiveness, productivity and efficiency according to three aspects (sucrose yields, sugarcane per hectare and factory). This article discusses some economic and technical competitiveness indicators for the performance assessment of the Mexican sugarcane industry, using various tools (benchmarking and Porter's diamond methodologies) for analyzing performance parameters. The results suggest that there are numerous technical and economic factors that limit growth, since the Mexican industry has remained highly non-competitive and needs to improve and innovate in reducing costs, particularly regarding sugarcane farming business performance (raw material, harvest and transport costs), and the development of planning strategies to improve profitability. The other major area identified is sugar process diversification based on by-products (waste, chaff, molasses, filter mud and stillage). This is highly relevant to the sugar industry as a source of renewable energy and raw materials.

Keywords : sugar industry; productivity; sugarcane; costs.

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