ISLAMABAD, Sept 1: Sugar mill owners are set to press the government for reducing support price of sugarcane and delaying the crushing season, from October to late November or even December, in an important meeting to be held here on Tuesday.

Sources told Dawn on Sunday that the federal food minister, Sikandar Hayat Bosan, had invited the sugar industry players and farmers in a bid to develop a consensus on the controversial issues of support price for sugarcane crop and start of next crushing season.

The meeting and its venue is yet to be announced publicly. However, sources said it may be held in the office of Mr Bosan. Representatives of the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA), the Chamber of Agriculture, the Kissan Board and the Sindh Abadgar Board will participate in the meeting.

Sources said sugar mills also wanted the government to discourage import of sugar by private parties to avoid the likely decrease in the domestic prices of the commodity.

The focal point of discussion is expected to be the price-fixing formula for sugarcane crop, as devised by the Agricultural Policy Institute (API) — till recently called the Agriculture Prices Commission (APC) —

to which the mill owners are openly opposed.

The farmers are demanding an increase in the price of sugarcane because per acre production cost had increased considerably. They want the price to be linked with cost of production.

But mill-owners want the government to further slash the supporting price from last year’s Rs60 per 40-kg in Punjab, Rs65 in NWFP and Rs67 in Sindh.

The millers justify their demand by contending that last year price of sugar had touched Rs43 as against the present Rs28-30. So either price of sugar be jacked up to last year’s level or price of sugarcane be decreased according to the present reduced price of sugar in the market.

“We are in a fix and don’t know what to do. This issue is so tricky and sensitive. It involves farmers, the industry and consumers and needs a balanced approach. But it is hard to satisfy all the three at the same time,” an official of API told Dawn.

He said if the demand of farmers is accepted, mill-owners would start crying and vice versa. And, if the government tries to satisfy both the millers and farmers, the consumers would have to pay a heavy price.

A Minfal official told Dawn that the Sugar Factory Control Act of 1950 had empowered provinces to intervene and fix minimum price for sugarcane every year to save farmers from exploitation by sugar cartels.

He said the federal government was not entitled to decide any increase or decrease in the sugarcane prices.

But, the Minfal authorities could still facilitate both the parties to unanimously accept the price-fixing formula of the Agriculture Policy Institute.

He said the farmers had also refused to accept a demand of the millers to link the sugarcane price with the sucrose level (sweetening level) in the surgarcane.

The average sucrose level in Pakistan is 8.5 per cent. But, its level is different province-wise. In some parts of Punjab, the sucrose level is nine per cent and according to some millers of NWFP, in the areas where mills of the minister for industries and production, Jahangir Tareen, operate the sucrose level is even above 10 per cent.