HYDERABAD, Nov 19: The overly delayed commencement of sugarcane crushing each year, which has almost become a routine, causes huge financial losses to the growers as they have to divert the water meant for sowing wheat to their standing sugarcane crop hence delay in sowing wheat and less water for the Rabi crop.

The virtual monopoly of sugar factories is forcing the growers to switch over to crops other than sugarcane.

Interviews with growers on Monday revealed that delayed crushing this year will once again lead to less production of wheat next year because the growers have diverted much of their share of water for Rabi crops to the standing cane crop.

Seven years on and the cane crushing crisis is deepening by passing day with all the successive governments failed to ensure make factories start crushing between Oct 1 to 31 as required under the Sugar Factories Control Act.

“Around 0.3 million acres could not be brought under cultivation of wheat this year because of late harvesting of sugarcane following deliberate delay in the commencement of crushing season in Sindh,” said Abdul Majeed Nizamani who heads the Sindh Abadgar Board.

He said sugarcane is a Kharif-Rabi crop but it stands so much time on the land that it takes much of the time meant for wheat sowing.

An upset Nizamani said the growers were giving serious thought to switching over to other crops.

According to his estimates on an average sugarcane yield per acre comes to around 500 maunds and the capacity of factories during initial days of crushing is around 2.5 million maunds which indicates that at least 5,000 acres of sugarcane per day should be harvested to meet their demand, which increases when crushing reaches its peak.

This year again sugar mills deviated from the schedule announced by the Sindh government and finally started crushing around Nov 16.

“There used to be around 39 to 40 per cent produce of sugarcane but during past two years it had dropped to 28 to 29 per cent which indicates changing patterns among growers, who have started opting for crops other than sugarcane,” said another progressive grower, Imdad Nizamani.

He said that he used to cultivate cane on 80 per cent of land but now he cultivates the crops on only two per cent of his land. Sugarcane crisis has always dealt a serious blow to wheat sowing whose ideal time is between Oct 15 to Nov 30, he said.

Delay in start of crushing leads to reduction of cane’s weight and increase in its content of sucrose, which benefits mills owners. One acre of sugarcane cultivation required around four feet of water and given present water crisis it was becoming extremely difficult to continue with this crop, they said.

Another equally decisive factor for growing disillusionment among the growers is non-fixation of sugarcane prices by the government which always yields to pressure from factory owners.

Sindh’s cane growers argue that recovery of sugar from cane in Sindh is more than that of Punjab therefore its price should also be different from that of Punjab. On an average recovery of sugar from per 40 kg sugarcane in Sindh and Punjab over the past 12 years shows that it stands at 9.463 per cent in Sindh and 8.27 per cent in Punjab.

This year, the growers believe, Sindh will produce around 360 million maunds of sugarcane as compared to earlier estimates of 400 million maunds due to climatic conditions and late commencement of crushing season.

The mill owners kept putting back date of crushing despite government reminders while the middlemen continued to take undue advantage of the situation by buying the crop at minimum prices.