As sugar mill owners and the establishment have, once again, locked their horns with cane growers emerging as the ultimate sufferers in this new power struggle.
The recently held annual general meeting of the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) in Lahore ended with the warning that new crushing would not be started until surplus stocks were either consumed or purchased by the government.
The PSMA has said that its members were holding more than 700,000 tons of sugar countrywide. The government on the other hand seems unconvinced and has refused to purchase more than 100,000 tons of sugar.
It has said that the millers were now united and were using blackmailing tactics. The federal minister for food, agriculture and livestock, in a recent press statement, has stated that the PSMA was presenting false figures of surplus stocks.
This is not happening for the first time as every year at the start of the crushing season millers deliberately delay crushing on one pretext or the other. This is done to force growers to sell their crop for less than the fixed price. Same is the situation this year, too.
If crushing is delayed, growers would have no other option but to sell the standing cane crop to exploitative middlemen for much less than the fixed price. It is not only the low price which is a challenge growers are facing for their produce.
With the wheat sowing season starting in the country, growers are unable to prepare their fields well in time for this equally important crop that is also a primary food staple. The powerful millers have been victimizing farmers through long delays in payments.
The delay in crushing is also a potential threat for self-sufficiency in wheat. If wheat is not sown in time over large cultivatable areas presently occupied by the cane crop, the fear is that the country may not be able to produce enough wheat required for yearly consumption.
While steps for the protection of sugar industry are necessary, the interests of cane farmers must also be kept in mind. One fails to understand what is stopping the government from devising a comprehensive strategy to end this fiasco, once for all.
This situation that emerges every year at the start of the rushing season is threatening the livelihood of minions of poor country men. A long term and balanced approach is urgently needed to develop sugar industry for the advantage of all the stakeholders i.e., industrialists growers and consumers.
