PUNE: Key sugar producing districts of Pune, Ahmednagar and Solapur in the Pune division are the worst hit in terms of the impact of irregular monsoon over sugarcane yield, a national level satellite mapping study has revealed. This is expected to adversely affect sugar production in the 2012-13 crushing season. The division has consistently figured among the top performers on the state's sugar map.
The sugarcane crushing season begins by November every year and continues till end of April next year.
The state agriculture commissionerate has projected a sugarcane availability of around 550 lakh tonne for 2012-13 against the 700 lakh tonne in 2011-12. This year, sugar production would be close to 60 lakh tonne compared to 90 lakh tonne last year.
The national level satellite mapping of sugarcane cultivation, jointly commissioned by the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) and the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories, has revealed that western Maharashtra, which includes the Pune division, has received rainfall very late this season. This forced farmers to take the government's offer of diverting semi-grown sugarcane crop as fodder to the cattle camps. The satellite mapping report has underscored the fear of sugarcane scarcity in the western Maharashtra region.
Belgaum district of Karnataka, known for high sugarcane production, is another area that has been badly hit this year.
Belgaum is close to the Maharashtra-Karnataka border and some of the sugar factories in Kolhapur and Sangli are dependent on the sugarcane from Belgaum and adjoining areas.
At a recent review meeting, minister for cooperation Harshvardhan Patil had declared that the government won't issue sugarcane crushing licence to those sugar factories which have less than 50% sugarcane cultivation in their command areas.
As per the state's agro-climatic zones, Pune division falls under medium-to-low rainfall area but it has a number of small and medium sized dams, which is the main source of irrigation for sugarcane cultivators. The delayed rainfall discouraged farmers from cultivating sugarcane early in the monsoon season.
Their problem was further compounded by the state government's decision against releasing water in the irrigation canals to meet the rising demand for drinking water from the urban areas.
Sugarcane is a water intensive crop. Farmers who could foresee that their crop was unlikely to get sufficient water, decided to sell it as fodder to government's cattle camp instead of letting the crop to wither. "Diversion of crops to cattle camps was aimed at cutting losses," said a senior official at the agriculture commissionerate. "The idea was to enable farmers recover at least some of their investment made in cane cultivation, labour, seed and fertilizers," he added.