Farmers have demanded a change in the formula for fixation of statutory minimum prices (SMPs) for sugarcane by incorporating a 10% risk factor.
A delegation of Kisan Jagriti Manch met the chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), Haque on Friday and suggested that apart from incorporating 10% risk factor in the computation of cane SMPs, a 10% managerial cost should also be considered. Land rental should be calculated at prevailing market price. The transportation cost of sugarcane from the farmers’ field to the factory should be borne by the millers.
While estimating the SMPs, the farmers said that the rates of interests on loans to farmers for investment should also be factored in at prevailing rates. They alleged that data on the cost of production generated by the state agriculture universities and the directorate of economics and statistics in the agriculture ministry at the Centre do not reflect the ground realities of the situation and therefore the procedure needs to be rectified.
The farmers demanded that the profits generated by the mills from byproducts like ethanol, molasses, bagasse, pressmud, power cogeneration should be equally shared with cane growers. They demanded implementation of the recommendations of the National Commission on Farmers, which suggested that the support prices of crops should be estimated at 50% over the cost of production. Just as the government employee dearness allowances are adjusted as per the movements price indices, the support prices of crops should also be adjusted accordingly, from time to time. The weightage of sugar in the wholesale price index, which is high, should be reasonably lowered, they said.
