Sindh’s cane growers reluctant to sell crop to sugar mills

KARACHI: Growers are reluctant to sell sugarcane to the sugar mills at the government’s notified rate of Rs 127 per maund as they await an increase in cane prices in wake of an unprecedented hike in sugar rates.
Only four sugar mills – Sakrand Sugar Mill, Habib Sugar Mill, Al-Noor Sugar Mill and Matiyari Suar Mill – in Sindh have so far started the crushing season while others are in the process of igniting the boilers, Pakistan Today has learnt.
In addition, growers also claimed that the minimum support price fixed by the Sindh government was significantly less than the actual cost of sugarcane production which had made it impossible to sell the crop at Rs 127 per maund.
They alleged authorities in the Sindh government to have fixed the cane prices without analysing the cost of sugarcane production. The government should fix the minimum support price of sugarcane at Rs 150 per maund for the crushing season 2010-11 as according to growers; estimated cost of 40 kilograms of sugarcane production was at least Rs 145.
Growers believed that price set by the government was remorseless as they could not bear a loss of Rs 18 per maund to comply with government orders. Growers maintained that the sugarcane crop reaches maturity only with proper care of a couple of months, which means a greater amount of water consumption, hard work and time as compared to other agricultural crops. They blamed the government of fixing support price without analysing the nature of product and cost of production.
Growers added that an alarming increase in fertiliser prices had led to an increase in the cost of every major crop. “Once all sugar mills of the province start crushing the cane support prices would be gradually increased and it might reach Rs 300 per maund. Last year, the sugar cane support prices had reached at Rs 270 per maund in the mid of crushing of the crop”, officials at Sindh Abadgar Board, requesting anonymity told Pakistan Today.
Following its old tradition, the Sindh government always fixes the minimum support price of sugarcane following announcement by the Punjab government without analysing difference in cost of sugarcane production in these two provinces, sources said. The sugarcane production cost in Sindh is comparatively high as compared to Punjab due to shortage of irrigation water and high fertiliser prices.
The poor growers are worried about their standing crop spread over thousands of acres of land as they do not want to sell their production at lower rates, which would bring losses of millions of rupees to them, sources opined. Furthermore, sources also hinted that the growers might not sale the cane crop to the mills and manufacture Gurr (molasses) on their own instead of bowing before the millers.