October 22, 2007	Monday	Shawwal 9, 1428

PESHAWAR, Oct 21: Farmers have warned of a sugar crisis in the country if the government failed to immediately increase sugarcane prices.

“The row over rate fixation between farmers and mill owners may lead to shortage of sugar in the market,” a farmer said. He said the cane crushing season would start from Nov 15, but the government had yet to resolve the dispute.

He said the farmers had brawled with mill owners a few days back over the rate of sugarcane, which had furthered deepened the crisis. Mill owners in Dera Ismail Khan had asked the government to impose a ban on the cultivation of sugarcane in the district after farmers demanded a fixed rate of sugarcane, the farmer claimed.

The mill owners, he said, in turn had asked the government to impose taxes on Gur Ganis (or Gur manufacturing units) in a bid to force farmers to sell their products to the mills. He alleged that sugarcane mill owners had warned the government of creating an artificial shortage of the commodity in the market if it accepted the farmers’ demand.

Kissan Board NWFP chairman Murad Ali Khan said the farmers were demanding more than Rs100 per 40kg from the government due to the increased input on the crop that had made it impossible for farmers to sell it on low rates.

He warned that the farmers would stop cultivating sugarcane and opt for another crop if the government failed to increase the rate from the current Rs65 per 40kg. Last year, the government had fixed Rs65 per 49kg of sugarcane. He added that farmers would destroy their crop instead of selling it at throwaway price to mill owners if their demands weren’t met.

He said they had conveyed to the government that mill owners would be responsible for any sugar crisis. He said the problem could only be resolved through fixation of sugarcane prices by mill owners.

Mr Khan said the two meetings between representatives of farmers and mill owners on September 30 and October 12 had failed to resolve the issue.

He said Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had asked all provinces to fix the rate of sugarcane, but even then no province had fixed it due to which farmers could face severe losses.

An official in the provincial government said a report regarding the issue had been sent to the governor and hoped that a decision would be announced soon.

A representative of sugar mills told Dawn that the government was ready to increase the rate of sugar and claimed that they themselves were not in a position to raise the rate of sugarcane.