MARDAN, June 4: Local growers have decided to stop growing the beet crop in view of the insufficient buying rates fixed for current year and non-resolution of their problems.

A number of growers of Mardan told Dawn that it was not only an expensive crop, it also required a great deal of labour, with the poor farmer subsequently finding it hard to sell it after so much toil.

The beet crop is only cultivated in Peshawar and Mardan divisions while, currently, Premier Sugar Mills (PSM), Mardan, Frontier Sugar Mills (FSM), Takhtbai, and Khazana Sugar Mills, Peshawar, do the crushing.

The Salim Sugar Mills in Charsadda, which also used to crush this crop, closed down some 10 years ago following a row between the mills management and workers’ union. The growers complained that getting indent from the mills for beet was an impossible job for a poor grower with no influence to peddle.

When at long last, they win indent, they find getting drivers of trucks or trolleys to ferry their crop from fields to the mills as another herculean task. The drivers show reluctance in doing the job, unless their palms are greased, the growers charged.

They expressed their surprise that while the buying price was fixed at Rs52 per 50kg last year, it has been fixed at Rs38 per 50kg this year — a sheer injustice with the farmers.

Beet was an expensive and labour-intensive crop but the mills management were refusing to purchase it at reasonable price, the growers lamented.

They claimed that malya, abyana, seed, fertilizer, labour wage, pesticide and tubewell expenditures exceeded their income.