July 21, 2003	Monday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 20, 1424

Sugar-cane is the main source of white sugar while sugar-beet contributes hardly 0.5 per cent of the total national production and most of which is grown in NWFP. Sugar-cane is the fourth major crop after wheat, cotton and rice and occupies 5 per cent of the total cultivated area. Last year, it contributed 6.3 per cent to the national agriculture value addition and 1.3 per cent of the GDP.

The area under sugar-cane increased from 0.19 million hectors (mha) in 1947 to 1.09 million ha in 2002-03 due to indiscriminate increase of sugar mills from three to 77 in the wheat and cotton areas of Punjab and cotton/rice areas in Sindh, especially around sugar mills due to high water requirements. Out of these sugar mills, 38 are in Punjab,32 in Sindh, 6 in NWFP and I in Azad Jammun and Kashmir.

As a result, total production of sugar-cane went up from 0.57 million tons in 1947 to the expected yield of nearly 45 million tons in 2003. The average yield increased from 29 tons per hectare to 47 ton per hectare during this period. Likewise, sugar production increased from 10,000 tons in 1947 to 3.25 million tons in 2001-02. The maximum production of 3.6 million tons was obtained in 1997-98 which again nose dived to 2.4 million tons during the next two years.

Unfortunately, the domestic sugar production suffers due to its poor planning. The country is virtually importing sugar since its inception, except in early 80’s when it achieved self-sufficiency, but which did not last long.Sugar import began again from 1985-86 onwards with yearly fluctuations. This happened in spite of increase of sugar mills to 77. The highest imports of sugar were 750000 tons in 1985-86, 680900 tons in 1996-97 and 930142 tons in 2001-02 causing a foreign exchange burden on the national exchequer.

It is a strange situation that on the one hand, we are importing sugar, while on the other, we also export it. For instance, we imported 858241 tons between 1993-94 and 1998-99 and exported 1583819 tons during the same period. The trend continued even afterwards. Again, the national production of sugar was over 3.5 million tons in 1997-98 and 1998-99 which was higher than the domestic requirements of about three million tons. One may ask, what was the point of importing 110400 and 10,000 ton of sugar, respectively, during these two years ?

This trend may continue even in 2001-02 when over 3.2 million tons,more thane the domestic requirement, has been produced. This reflects the poor planning by the successive policy-makers due to the powerful lobby of the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) which is more interested to export for earning foreign exchange, at the expense of consumers. Fortunately, nearly 70 per cent of molasses— a bye-product—is exported that negates to a considerable extent the loss on the annual import of sugar. For instance, during the decade ending 1999-2000, the total value for the export of molasses was Rs19987 million against the sugar import value of Rs18065 million during the same period. But most of the earning from the export of molasses went to sugar industry.

The policy framework should be based firstly, on meeting the domestic requirements and then to reserve a sufficient amount to meet the shortage during poor production period which has become a regular feature. After this, if there was surplus, that should be exported. Mills are producing below their capacity of 5.5 million tons. Therefore, the mistake of increasing their number should not be repeated unless the industry starts producing 85 per cent (4.6 million tons) which is its production capacity. However, chances of obtaining this objective are remote unless areas of water reservoirs are extended as sugar is a high water requirement crop.

The cost of production of domestic sugar is very high due to low-cane yield, low recovery, high cost of inputs, high electric charges for tube-well water, late payments to growers, wrong support pricing, over-all policies and the increased use of sugar-cane for seed and gur-making from 25 to nearly 37 per cent.

Again, PSMA on the one hand, wants to export sugar and demands subsidy to compete in the international market, while on the other hand, also wants to increase import duty so that they could sell sugar at a higher rate in the domestic market.

Sugar industry also wants bank loans for various purposes including payments to cane-growers who are not paid timely. Mills have failed to start crushing on time for the last three years causing problems to growers including delayed sowing of crops resulting in low yields. This delayed crushing and late payments to growers may force growers to shift to other crops thus effecting the industry.

Our average cane yield ranges between 44-47 ton per hectare which is much below the competing countries such as India with average yield of 69 tons, the USA, 84 ton and Egypt 107 tons per hectare. The yield of sugar-cane is nearly 80 per cent below the demonstrated achievable potential.Therefore, the policy makers should develop a crash programme for implementing modern sugar-cane production technology at the field level by creating awareness among the growers and removal of constraints such as timely availability of all inputs including credit recoverable on easy terms. Sugar mills should also pay to the growers on time and start the crushing period earlier in the season and discourage the middlemen who loot growers. The irrigation efficiency be improved by adopting the well established On Farm Water Management technology. Both the government and sugar mills should help the growers in this respect. If by following the aforementioned suggestions in letter and spirit the yield gap is even reduced by 40 per cent, it will revolutionize our sugar industry.

It is not understandable that when sugar breeders have claim to have developed varieties with a recovery percentage of 10-13 per cent then why our average recovery percentage is 8.5 per cent as against 11 per cent of India. It is argued in some quarters that our actual recovery percentage is 9 per cent in Punjab and 10 per cent in Sindh, but the mill owners deliberately show a lower recovery percentage to avoid tax payment on the surplus and use it for their ulterior motives.

The inefficient delivery system delays in crushing of harvested cane which lowers sucrose percent up to 30 per cent besides reduction in the cane weight. Therefore, there is great need to evolve or import new sugar-cane varieties possessing higher recovery percentage on sustainable basis, increasing cane delivery efficiency by removing constraints, installation of modern machinery with higher sugar recovery ratio, better control of mechanical and chemical departments of sugar mills and remodelling of old sugar mills. The policy makers should also consider genuine problems of sugar mills and take necessary actions to resolve their problems.

Due to increasing population and decaying irrigation system due to its mismanagement, the nation may face serious food and sugar problems in the new millennium. Consequently, the need for increasing area under food crops may pose a serious problem for growing sugar-cane which is a long duration and high water requirement crop. This situation may cause problems for sugar industry in the near future. Because sugar-cane is grown both as an annual and perennial crop, the former requires 71 acre-inch of water ,while the latter requires 80-100 acre-inch of water annually at the root zone alone.

This is higher than the combined water requirement of both wheat and cotton(44 acre-inch) or that of wheat and maize(43 acre-inch) at the root zone . Again the delta of water of rice, oil seeds ,pulses and other important crops is also lower than that of sugar-cane.

The policy makers should give serious consideration to this problem and prepare plan for increasing water availability at the earliest by building new water reservoirs as between 30-40 MAF of water is going waste annually into the Arabian Sea and the storage capacity of existing dams is declining due to their sedimentation. The think-tanks want to replace sugar-cane with other crops as one of the option. This policy could flop sugar industry, the second largest after textile industry making 100,000 labour force jobless and create problems for about nine million rural people engaged in sugar-cane cultivation.

It is also being suggested that sugar-cane be replaced by sugar-beet whose recovery percentage of + 12 per cent is higher than that of sugar-cane and its water requirement of about 27 acre-inch is also much lower than 71 acre-inch of spring planted and 80-100 acre inch of autumn planted cane crops. A project on sugar-beet cultivation costing Rs35 million has already been initiated. But it can be extended to a limited area because being a rabi crop it competes for water with wheat, berseem(major rabi fodder), rabi oil-seeds, rabi pulses, when water supply during rabi season is much lower than that of kharif season.

In addition to various options as discussed earlier, priority be given to building new reservoirs ,improving irrigation efficiency by implementing water conservation technology, using sulfurous generator in tube-wells pumping brackish water for improving their water quality for significantly increasing cane yield and shifting sugar-cane cultivation on waterlogged soils. The research has already established that major part of water requirement of a crop grown on high water-table soil is met from the ground-water.

There are 2.5 million hectares where water-table is between 0-5 feet below the ground surface which increases to 4.9 million hectare after monsoon. Sowing of sugar-cane on such soils will considerably reduce its irrigation water requirement. The farmers or sugar mills may be allowed to grow sugar-cane on such high water-table state lands on contract basis.

Sindh Province has the largest waterlogged area. Growing of sugar-cane on its waterlogged soils will result in higher cane yield and sugar recovery percentage due to its more suitable ecological conditions for sugar-cane production.