ISLAMABAD, Aug 17: The only province of Pakistan with climatic conditions proximate to those suitable for the profitable cultivation of sugarbeet is NWFP and any attempt to produce in Punjab or Sindh may be a sheer waste of precious resources, experts have cautioned.

Likewise, the plan to introduce inter-cropping of sugarcane and sugarbeet from next planting season of the former is unpracticable: There will be hardly any sugar to extract from beet plants when located alongside sugarcane. What is more, even the sugarcane crop may be damaged.

Sugarcane plant standing on a ridge, a veteran expert remarked, needed to have its roots in water all the time. The row of sugarbeet planted between the ridges would be exposed to water when it may not need it. The result would be decay and diminution of sucrose content.

In case, sugarbeet/sugarcane is to be inter-cropped with some other crop, that crop would have to be selected after adequate experimentation by the scientists, the experts stressed.

Introduced in Mardan area in 1960s for the first time, sugarbeet is now grown over an area of nearly 6,000 hectares. The average yield of sugarbeet there is 26.6 tons per hectare.

On the other hand, in Sindh after trials over an area of 100 hectares, the beet yield could not rise above 8.3 tons per hectare.

The problem with beet in Sindh as well as in Punjab and Balochistan, is not confined to low yield. They — the sugar mills and farmers, to be exact — would have to take care of vital logistical problems in order to derive optimal profits from it.

In Cuba, where sugarbeet too is grown in massive quantities, sugar extraction factories are located in close proximity to the field. Reason: Once harvested, it must reach the factory within 24 hours, that is, before its quality begins to deteriorate.

NWFP as the producer of sugarbeet more or less meets this condition. There, the mills have installed the special machinery needed to process beet and are located at suitable distance.

These conditions are non-existent in both Punjab and Sindh in terms of distance from the fields. The mills there can be persuaded to install the machinery needed to slice and grind the beet pulp for its conversion in syrup only if they expect adequate profit from the additional investment involved.

Besides, the government faces the uphill task of reassuring the farmers of areas other than NWFP that cultivation of beet is a more profitable enterprise than, say, sugarcane. It would have to prove that the yield is at least three times that obtained in Sindh so far and if not entirely equivalent to that in NWFP.

Basically, he said, referring to a recent statement by Federal Agriculture Minister Khair Mohammad Junejo, Pakistan is arid zone and as such unsuitable for production of sugarcane — a crop of the water-rich, climatically temperate tropical zones.

For this reason, its yields are extremely low. Only lower Sindh has a semblance of tropical climate. The cane yield there is, therefore, the highest in Pakistan — 55 tons per hectare. In Punjab, it is 45 tons.

Likewise, the sucrose recovery is the highest in Sindh: 10%. It is trailed by Punjab and NWFP with recovery levels of 8-9% and 5%, respectively.

The proportion of sugar extraction from sugarbeet is relatively higher: around 11% in NWFP. Another advantage of the beet is that it is a four-month crop, thus making the fields available for other uses for two-thirds of the year. By contrast, sugarcane occupies the fields for 12 to 14 months.

But the consideration that weighs with the government the most is the conservation of water. The experts had, in reality, been pointing out for decades that sugarcane is a water intensive crop a country like Pakistan can scarcely afford and that expansion of its area be discouraged.

Even though much belated, experts welcome the government’s decision to promote sugarbeet as a crop that consumes quantities of water 1/4th of those required by sugarcane.

In case, the country is really to prepare itself for a prolonged drought and avoid an irreversible water famine, it would have to curtail sugarcane cultivation in all the provinces except lower Sindh. It is, however, not possible to realise this objective immediately because then majority of all the sugar mills of Punjab and many of those in Sindh would have to be dismantled.

In this regard, the first step the government can take is to dismantle the 15-20 sugar mills that are not located in sugarcane-growing areas and, therefore, are already hard put to it keeping their costs at par with returns, if any. Their owners, can be supported to convert these through concessions.

The loss in cane output in other provinces can be made up to a significant extent by expanding the area under cane in lower Sindh

As regards sugarbeet, the experts further suggest, the entire area in Mardan now under sugarcane should be diverted to its cultivation, these experts suggest.