New Delhi, January 31 :  The government on Thursday increased the sugarcane price that mills are required to pay to farmers by 23.5 per cent to Rs 210 per quintal for the year starting October 2013. The Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP), the minimum price that sugarcane farmers are legally guaranteed, was Rs 170 per quintal in the marketing year 2012-13 (October-September).

The approval is in line with the recommendation of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), which suggested Rs 40 increase in the FRP at Rs 210 per quintal for 2013-14. The CACP is a statutory body and advises the government on the pricing policy for major farm produce.

The FRP is the sugarcane price fixed by the Centre but there are some states like Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu which announce their own rate called state advisory price (SAP), higher than the FRP.

This price will be linked to a basic recovery rate of 9.5 per cent, subject to a premium of Rs 2.21 per quintal for every 0.1 percentage point increase in recovery above that level. The recovery rate is the quantity of sugar that is produced from the crushed cane.