Angelica Lefter – April 30, 2024 2:56 p.m
Good news is coming for sugar beet growers in Transylvania. The management of the Luduș Sugar Factory wants to expand its production, after taking over the production of sugar beet in the 2023 campaign, in order to produce the finished product, from 3,500 hectares. This year, sugar beet production was contracted on an area of 8,800 hectares.
It is known that last year production was resumed at the Luduș Sugar Factory, one of the only two factories producing sugar in our country. There were contracts with sugar beet farmers, and this meant that they too had a place to sell their produce.
Read also: Luduș factory – contracts with over 500 farmers. The price set per ton of sugar beet
The general director of the Luduș Sugar Factory announced new investments and modernization
Present in Jucu commune, Cluj county, at the Agrarian Fair, Vali Porojan, general director of the Luduș Sugar Factory, said, for Agrointelligence – AGROINTEL.ROthat the processing unit has the capacity to produce over 8,800 hectares and this can be increased, through new investments and re-engineering.
“The Luduș sugar factory is located in Mureș county, it was established in the 60s. It produced sugar continuously from 1960 until almost two years ago, when it was about to close. The sugar factory was saved by two Romanian investors. After the factory was taken over, work was done to put it into operation. Last year we had around 3,500 hectares from which we produced 25,000 tons of sugar, Romanian sugar, produced at the factory in the 2023 campaign. The factory currently has the capacity to produce sugar from 8,800 hectares cultivated with beets, but there is a possibility and this capacity can be increased when we collect, hopefully, next year, in the next campaign, more hectares, the factory will be ready for more. Investments will be made, retechnology will be done”, said Vali Porojan.
The Luduș Sugar Factory produces its own electricity
According to director Vali Porojan, the Luduș Sugar Factory has the ability to produce its own energy during the sugar manufacturing process.
“In the technological process of manufacturing sugar, we produce steam. Following the resulting steam, we have turbines and through turbogeneration we also produce electricity. This electric current is a clean one, it is a current that has two times less greenhouse effect emissions. This electricity is used for our own consumption, during the campaign, we only use it for the factory’s consumption,” said Vali Porojan.
Read also: The Luduș Sugar Factory ends the campaign today, with a 12-day extension, to support late farmers
The intention of the factory management is to bring it back to its glory days, when even more sugar beet was processed. That’s why thanks went to the farmers who focused on this crop and will continue to do so from now on.
“At the moment, the factory has around 180 employees, and this year the collaboration is with almost 550 farmers. The counties where we will harvest beets this year and where we have already sown beets are the counties of Brașov, Harghita, Covasna, Mureș, of course, which broke the record this year in terms of hectares, Cluj, Alba, Arad, Sibiu. The area of Transylvania is an area with a tradition of sugar beet cultivation. Thank you to the farmers who returned to this wonderful crop, thank you to the farmers who stayed and grew sugar beets. It is an area with tradition and we hope that the factory will reach like in its heyday when many farmers cultivated sugar beet”, concluded Vali Porojan, general director of the Luduș Sugar Factory, in the “Farmers of Romania” column, part of the show Agrostrategia, a co-production Agropintelligence – AGROINTEL.RO and TVR, which can be watched from Monday to Thursday from 10:00 on TVR1.
Luduș Sugar Factory – news for farmers
