Uttar Pradesh cane being rushed to jaggery units

With the delay in sugarcane crushing in Uttar Pradesh, with private mills insisting on lower state-set prices and farmers demanding much more, the jaggery industry in the state is getting a boost.

Farmers needing cash and those who need to clear their land for wheat sowing are selling cane to jaggery units at whatever price they get. Since there is an adequate supply of cane this year, jaggery prices have crashed. It is Rs 30 a kg in the retail market and Rs 28 a kg in the wholesale one. According to a jaggery unit owner, this is the lowest price in the five years.

In the cane belt of Lakhimpur, Pilibhit, Saharanpur, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Sitapur, Bareilly and Gonda, private sugar mills are yet to announce the start of crushing. This has forced small and marginal farmers to start distress sales of cane.

According to Harinam Singh of the Bhartiya Kisan Union, around 40 per cent of the cane farmers go for wheat cultivation after supplying cane to millers. A delay in cane crushing is a big problem for them. Cane farmers are selling to jaggery units at Rs 150-180 a quintal, an unexpected low. Last year, when the government's state advised price (SAP), which sugar mills have to pay to farmers for buying cane, was Rs 280 a qtl, jaggery units had paid Rs 200 a qtl at the beginning of the season.

According to Baldeo Verma, a jaggery owner in Hargaon of Sitapur district, "Last season, there was no cane available for us after the SAP announcement." The government had announced the cane SAP on December 7 last year.

According to Hari Shankar Shukla, a Lucknow trader, the state contributes 40 per cent of the national jaggery production and this year it will exceed 50 per cent. There are around 23,000 jaggery units in UP, of which 14,000 were operational last year. This year, all of these are operational and 5,000 new ones have come up.