Farmers' stir: UP plans to advance sugarcane crushing season to Oct 15

India's top sugar producer, UP had logged over 12 million tonnes last year

Amid the stir by farmers over the steps taken by the Centre in the agricultural space, the Uttar Pradesh government has announced an early start of the cane crushing operations, from October 15, to keep the farmers happy.

UP is the country’s top sugar and cane producer, and had logged 12.65 million tonnes (MT) of sugar output in the last 2019-20 crushing season. The quantity was more than 45 per cent of India’s sugar production of 27.2 MT.

The state’s annual sugarcane economy is pegged at nearly Rs 50,000 crore. According to preliminary estimates, UP has a bumper cane crop in 2020-21