Cane growers seek hike in MSP

Sugarcane growers in Andhra Pradesh have urged the government to enhance the minimum support price (MSP) for the current season, which is set to begin in the next two weeks.

The Centre has already announced the MSP of Rs 1,368 a tonne at 9.5 per cent recovery. However, the growers want this to be increased to Rs 2,500 a tonne at 8.5 per cent recovery.

AP Sugarcane Growers Association president, AV Gopala Rao, said farmers were spending around Rs 50,000 per acre to raise the crop. Moreover, the input cost including the labour had gone up considerably. Stating that the central government used to declare MSP on 8.5 per cent recovery till 2006, he said the state government too used to provide advisory price to help growers. However, this was withdrawn from the 2007 season and the state government too had stopped announcing the advisory price.

Rao said the sugar price had gone up from Rs 16 a kg to Rs 38 in the last four years On the other hand, the MSP for the farmers had come down.

Meanwhile, KCP Sugars in Krishna district that has crushing units at Challapalli and Vuyyuru, is gearing up for the 2010-11 season. KCP had set a target of crushing 900,000 tonnes for the season, more than 50 per cent compared with the previous season. During 2009-10 season, it crushed 485,000 tonnes of sugarcane at its Vuyyuru unit.