UP to pay 18% more for cane

The Uttar Pradesh government today declared sugarcane’s State Advised Price (SAP) for the 2009-10 crushing season. Although the price for the common variety is Rs 25 more than that of last year, it is much below the expectation of farmers.

Now, SAP stands at Rs 165 per quintal for the common variety, Rs 170 for early variety and Rs 162.50 for the rejected variety. Last year, SAP for common and early varieties stood at Rs 140 and Rs 145, respectively.

Almost 80 per cent of the sugarcane crop is of common variety, while early and rejected varieties account for about 15 and 5 per cent, respectively.

The Statutory Minimum Price (SMP) announced by the Centre is Rs 107 for this season.

“By declaring SAP, which is much lower than our expectations, the state government has done grave injustice to the cane growers. In times to come, this will result in low cane production and high sugar prices for the consumers,” Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait told Business Standard.

He lamented that at a time when the country was forced to import brown sugar, the government was not encouraging sugarcane cultivation with remunerative prices.

Tikait maintained that the farmers were expecting SAP to be above Rs 200 per quintal, when “the crushers are already paying Rs 220-225 per quintal”.

“We will not allow the crushers to be shut down and the sugar mills will have to pay competing rates to procure cane,” he announced.

Tikait informed that BKU would finalise its future course of action on October 29 at a ‘kisan panchayat’, to be presided over by Mahendra Singh Tikait.

Meanwhile, the industry has termed the SAP as “reasonable”.

“We had already apprised the state government that we were willing to pay 20 per cent higher over last year’s price,” an industry spokesperson said on anonymity.

UP farmers are getting disenchanted with cane farming over the past few years over the price issue, including court cases and payment delays. They are opting for foodgrain cultivation, believing it will give them more remunerative prices. The farmers also want to rotate 2-3 crops every year to get faster returns.

The crushing is likely to start in the first week of November. The UP cane area has declined from 2.8 million hectares in 2007-08 to 1.79 million hectares in 2009-10. The cane production also fell from 160 million tonnes in 2007-08 to 98 million tonnes this season.