The sugarcane crushing season, which is nearing its end in Uttar Pradesh, has in many ways been unprecedented this year.
The 40,000-odd farmers in the state are happy. Despite the fact that the season is still a few days away from being declared officially closed and the sugar factories still owe the farmers a whopping R6533.19 crore as dues, cane price payments to farmers are likely to cross R22,500 crore, which is almost R4,000 crore more than what they earned during the previous season.
Not only that, at 74.60 lakh tonne, the sugar production this season is the second-highest ever after 2006-07 season, when it clocked a whopping 84.65 lakh tonne.
The recovery, too, improved, with the eastern and central parts of the state showing better results. This has pushed sugar production from the state up by 7% during 2012-13 as compared to the 2011-12 season.
The main reason behind the enhanced earnings from sugarcane cultivation is the fact that the Akhilesh Yadav government followed the previous Mayawati government in fixing a relatively higher state advised price (SAP) for cane, which the industry termed as 'exorbitant' and 'unviable'.
According to sources in the sugar sector, UP is likely to close this year with a total sugar production of around 75 lakh tonne after crushing approximately 813.5 lakh tonne of cane.
Talking to FE, an official of the sugarcane department said that of the total 124 sugar mills in the state, both private as well as UP Sugar Cooperative Federation mills, 118 have already closed down for the season and only 3 are running on the leftover cane.
“The remaining factories are also expected to close by the end of this week,” he said, adding that till May 6, the sugar mills had crushed 813.17 lakh tonne of sugarcane and produced 74.60 lakh tonnes of sugar for which the farmers have already been paid R15,900 crore, while approximately R6,333.19 crore is still due to them.
“Against last year's corresponding figures till the same date, sugar factories had crushed 770 lakh tonne of cane to produce 69.74 lakh tonne of sugar. If we compare the payment figures of both the years, the incomes of the cane farmers will jump by almost R4,000 crore, which is astronomical,” he said, adding that this would empower farmers to a very large extent.
As far as the industry is concerned, the fact that the farmers are a richer lot does not enthuse or amuse them much, as they feel that the entire burden of the farmers' prosperity has been thrust on the industry's shoulders and they have to bear the brunt of it.
“Due to the huge difference between the cost of production of sugar and sales realization, the industry is making a loss of almost R3,500 on every tonne of sugar produced as a result of which arrears have started showing up in the current season too.”