Technical Series Number 13, December 1993
The main business of the sugar industry is producing and selling sugar. In the field, sugar production depends on the TCH (tons of cane per hectare or tonnage) and the RDTO (yield or recoverable sugar per unit weight of cane).
To evaluate the performance of a technology or a variety, the most used and simple system is to determine the TAH (tons of sugar per hectare), which is obtained by multiplying TCH x RDTO.
However, equal TAH values may represent different costs depending on the participation of the TCH and RDTO factors in the final result.
TAH-based analysis fails to recognize cost differences, making it difficult to select the most cost-effective technology.
This article presents a simple evaluation system to determine the effect of different combined values of TCH and RDTO on the net income resulting from the production of one ton of sugar (INta).
At CENICAÑA, the computer program 'Tonnage or Yield' has been developed in Lotus 1-2-3 version 2.2, which is presented at the end of the article and is available to users who wish to perform this evaluation using their own production data and commercial costs.
