There may not be enough sugarcane for sugar mills in Punjab and Haryana this year as area under sugarcane has come down coupled with a plant disease ?top borer?, which has damaged the crop.
Sugar mills may not continue crushing beyond February, which normally goes till April. The crushing begins from October and continues till the end of April every year. However, due to below average monsoon last year, sugarcane production in Punjab and Haryana has gone down by about 34 to 38%. To add to the problem, a disease, ?top borer? has hit the crop in many areas of two states.
The average yield of sugarcane last year was about 300 quintal per acre. Therefore, the average per acre earning was around Rs 40,000. This year, the average yield is not expected to be more than 250 quintal per acre, so the per acre earnings for the cane growers will be less than that of last year. An immediate fallout of the new scenario would be that at least half a dozen sugar mills in Haryana and a dozen sugar mills in Punjab would be run out of sugarcane by February.
Little doubt that many growers are contemplating to switch over to other crops. A progressive farmer of Patiala, Capt G SVirk says the paddy-wheat rotation on an average fetches, at present rates, about Rs 1 lakh per acre.
Moreover, many farmers also sow potato crop in between paddy and wheat crops, enhancing their earnings further. In case of sugarcane, no other crop can be sown for the entire year, Virk observed.
Virk says that if the state governments failed to raise the support price of sugarcane considerably this year, there will not be many growers next year, which will lead to a shortage of sugar in the country. Interestingly, to save water and electricity, two main requirements for the paddy, the government had been encouraging the farmers to take to cash crops like sugarcane in the past. However, this year?s income from paddy and wheat would neutralise the efforts of the government to promote diversification of crops.
Punjab government, however, is hopeful that farmers will return to sugarcane with the state government announcing state advisory price for sugarcane at Rs 180 per quintal for the crushing season of 2009-10. Cane commissioner, M S Sandhu told that area under sugarcane had definitely come down on the lines of UttarPradesh where area under sugarcane had decreased resulting in decline of sugarcane production of more than 20 %.
The trend is visible the two states from this year as according to agriculture department sources in Punjab, the total sugarcane production in Punjab would not be more than 3.5 lakh metric tonne as against 5.5 lakh metric tonne last year. Haryana too was expecting production of sugarcane at about 3.8 lakh mt this year as against 6 lakh mt last year.