Market-based solution: Sugar sector should adopt a revenue-sharing model

The sugar sector is beset with a crisis the symptoms of which are all too familiar — high production, low prices and accumulation of sugarcane price arrears payable by mills to farmers. This, indeed, is part of the cycle of ups and downs in the supply and prices of sugarcane and sugar that recurs with unfailing regularity and hurts cane farmers the most. The total unpaid dues of farmers crossed Rs 160 billion in March-end, reflecting not only the liquidity crunch in the sugar industry but also the financial deprivation of farmers who have already supplied their produce to factories.