SANGHAR, Jan 12: Sugarcane growers on Sunday accused the sugar mill owners of reaping dual benefit by delaying the crushing season by two months — depriving them of premium for greater sucrose content and lowering weight of their produce because of lower moisture content.
While the growers in upper Sindh area suspended the supply of sugarcane, sugar mills in lower Sindh are facing a glut of the produce.
Discounting the large number of camel and bull-carts, over 450 trucks and tractor-trolleys were seen waiting outside the Sanghar Sugar Mill to unload their produce.
Many of the drivers of tractor trolleys told this correspondent that they had been waiting for the past four days for their turn to enter the mill’s premises, adding that some of them had been awaiting their turn for the past six days.
Crushing capacity of the SSM is about 130,000 maunds per day, while it has been receiving over 160,000 maunds per day.
An official of district agriculture office said that if a loaded sugarcane trolley was stranded for a single day, the weight loss was more than 20 maunds.
Farmers, who had been unable to sow wheat during Nov / Dec, 2002, because of standing crop of sugarcane in their fields, expressed the fear of losing next cotton crop if the situation remained unchanged. They want to dump their produce now at whatever price is offered to them by the mill owners.
Most of the mills are offering prices, ranging between Rs36 and Rs40 per 40kg of sugarcane, despite the fixing of minimum purchase price of sugarcane by the government at Rs43 per 40kg. The growers have been promised rest of the amount after the closure of the mills.
A number of sugarcane growers, contacted by this correspondent, including members of the Sindh Abadgar Board and the Small Growers’ Association, said that farmers were not demoralized despite all the odds — shortage of water, drought-like conditions, sky-high prices of inputs, failure of cotton crop — as they planted sugarcane on a larger area.
According to Yar Muhammad Leghari of the SAB, Hassan Askari of the SGA and other growers, the mill owners were pursuing a policy, which they had devised a year ago, delaying the crushing season by two months. The mills, they added, had started crushing after Dec 15 last year.
They said that the mill owners had divided sugarcane growing areas into different zones, flouting the government’s policy, without the consent of growers.
They said that during the period, beginning from Dec 15, farmers usually stopped irrigating sugarcane crop due to annual closure of canals or they diverted water to other crops.
The growers also complained that the sugar mills owners had decided to deprive the growers of the premium for greater sucrose content.
According to the government policy, the mill owners are obliged to pay 50 paisa for every point above a sucrose content of 8.7 per cent, i.e. Re1 per 40kg for sugarcane having sucrose contents of 8.9 percent and Rs2 per 40 kg for 9.1 percent and so on.
The premium, which is usually paid to the growers after the closure of mills with balance outstanding against the sugarcane price. On an average, the premium comes to around Rs6 per 40kg. So one can well imagine the amount, which mills should pay to the growers if a mill crushes 10 million maunds of sugarcane with an average sucrose content of 9.5 per cent and above.
But this year, the farmers said, the sugar mill owners appeared to be bent upon depriving the growers of the premium on several pretexts, including high cost of sugar conversion, low sugar price in the local market, imposition of 18 per cent general sales tax, import of sugar and unsold stocks stuck with the sugar mills.
The farmers argued that despite their not being responsible for any of the above factors, they have to bear the brunt for no fault of theirs.
They criticized the government for having gone into what they termed hibernation, adding that they had been left at the mercy of sugar mills owners.
