With the sugar crushing season fast approaching and the crisis in cane availability becoming a major worry for the industry, all major stakeholders of the sector came on a common platform on Wednesday to prepare ?UP Sugar Vision 2015?, which envisages Uttar Pradesh to be a significant player in global sugar market by 2015 and also account for two-thirds of the national sugar production.
However, in order to make this vision see the light of the day, the two key stakeholders, the sugar millers and the state government agreed on the point that the ground has to be created where the faith of the third and the most important link of this pyramid, the cane growers, is won over by the millers.
Raising the cause of the farmers at Sugar Tech 2009: Shorter Seasons in Sugar Industry ?Opportunities & Challenges? organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), high level government officials, including the chief secretary Atul Kumar Gupta and the cane commissioner Sudhir Bobde emphasised that the main reason for the crushing season becoming shorter and cane being diverted to the crushers was the disenchantment of the growers towards cane sowing.
?The government feels that the mills need to build a long-term relationship with the farmers and not have a relationship on a year-to-year basis,? Gupta said stressing that the farmers? chief concern is timely and adequate payment for their produce.
?They do not mind selling cane to the crushers. So in order to beat the competitors, the sugar industry needs to take care of the farmers? interest and could perhaps set aside a loyalty bonus for those farmers,? Gupta suggested, adding that while the state government has been announcing cane prices every year, the industry can think of announcing prices for two years. ?This will take care of the competition from other crops as well as from other players,? he said.
Pointing out the challenges before the industry, the cane commissioner said that sugar is the backbone of the state?s economy and efforts should be made to create a win-win situation wherein both the industry and the farmers can survive together and not at the cost of one another. ?The mills can support the farmers in cane development and also contribute towards the well being of the farmers and their families. Only then would it be possible to get the farmers? interest back to sowing sugarcane,? he stated.
Reiterating that 80% of the problems of cane shortage can be checked by correct pricing and timely payment he said that a mechanism must be evolved wherein the price of cane must be known to the farmers before the sowing season. ?Uttar Pradesh should think on how declaration and payment of price can improved to benefit the farmers,? Bobde said.
On the issue of khandsari and gur units drawing a whopping 40-42% of the total cane produced in the state, Bobde said these units are an important part of the rural economy and can be used as a buffer in times of excess production but stressed that their role should be defined so that it does not have an adverse impact on the industry.
Expressing concern over the shortening crushing season for two consecutive years, Ramesh Suri, Chairman, CII UP State Council said that instead of remaining a dominant force amongst the sugar producing countries of the world, India was going through this unique problem due to an acute shortage of cane. ?Crushing seasons, which usually went on for 150 – 180 days are now reduced to merely 90 – 120 days. As a result, there had been substantial fall in the production of sugar in the state,? he said.
Explaing about the UP Sugar Vision 2015 after the day-long deliberations, Jayant Krishna, Vice Chairman, CII UP State Council said that apart from pursuing a long-term partnership between the farmers and the millers and, UP?s farmers need to adopt better seed varieties and farm practices while the sugar units need to embrace technological innovations to effect a 10-15% increase in recovery by 2015.
He also said that all major producers should ideally become integrated players with at least 10000 TCD units along with alcohol production and co-generation of electricity.