Cars Fueled by Sugar in India Will Add to Food Inflation Risks

  • India will export less sugar as supply is diverted to ethanol
  • Ethanol plan will also ease country’s reliance on oil imports
Workers load a bundle of sugarcane onto a truck while harvesting the crop in the Jalana district of Maharashtra, India, earlier in March.Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg
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India is pushing for more cars to run on ethanol made from sugar, a move that risks raising the cost of the sweetener globally.

The government will fast-track an ethanol program that will divert as much as 6 million tons of sugar toward fuel production annually by 2025, according to the food ministry. That’s almost the entire amount that India, the world’s second-biggest producer after Brazil, currently exports to the global market.