LUCKNOW: Caught in the crossfire between the state government and private sugar mills, a large number of cane-growers are forced to go in for distress selling of their crop for almost one-fourth of the price even the mill owners would have offered. According to reports, sugarcane farmers in east UP are selling off their produce to local jaggery mills for a price as low as Rs 60 per quintal.
This has pushed the farmers to the brink of starvation, local leaders say. The state government has announced a state advisory price of Rs 280 per quintal, while mill owners are not ready to pay more than Rs 225. The situation is slightly better in western UP where the farmers are getting between Rs 120 and Rs 150 per quintal.
Speaking to TOI, a local farmer leader in Faizabad, Ram Singh Patel, said that small farmers who cannot wait for long have been selling off their produce as low as Rs 60 per quintal to the local jaggery (gur) manufacturers. If one takes into account the production cost as per the estimate of the state government (UP Council of Sugarcane Research, Shahjahanpur), then the sell off price of small farmers is barely one fourth. "What else can they do? They have to sow wheat crop. Otherwise they will have nothing to eat," Patel said. It was only on Friday when a local private sugar mill in Faizabad started its operation. But that hardly made any difference in the distress selling prices of sugarcane.
In western UP, where some of the sugar mills have started their operations, the 'sell-off' prices to the local gur manufactures are ranging anywhere between Rs 120 and Rs 150 per quintal. "Here the farmers have option to sell off their produce to any of the two mills — Kolhu mill and Pawwa mill. But they too are paying very little," said Brahm Singh Tomar, a local farmer in Baghpat. "The farmers are, therefore, getting agitated. They are left with no option since it is high time for them to go in for wheat cultivation,'' Tomar said.
A day earlier, a sugarcane farmer, Satyapal Singh, who had taken a loan of Rs 2 lakh from banks, was found hanging from a tree in a forested patch near his home in Lakhimpur Kheri district.
The incident kicked off a protest by over 500 cane-growers in front of Gularia sugar mill in Gola sub-division. Similar protests were held in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts of western Uttar Pradesh. Cane-growers in Rampur, Baghpat and Saharanpur have also been in protest mode, with a group in Rampur setting fire to their crop in anger and frustration.
Farmer leaders said they expected an escalation in the protests following the suicide. They fear other farmers with huge loans could similarly be driven to desperation. There are an estimated 45 lakh sugarcane farmers in the state. The ongoing tussle is a three-way one between cane-growers, mill-owners and the Uttar Pradesh government. The state adjusted price (SAP) per quintal of sugar - the rate at which mill-owners buy cane from the farmers has been fixed at Rs 280 this year, but mill-owners are not willing to pay more than Rs 225 a quintal.
UP Sugar Mills Association, which has yet to clear last year's payments of Rs 2400 crore to the farmers, said that the Uttar Pradesh government had fixed unviable prices for the crop, forcing them to postpone cane-crushing. Only 21 sugar mills have started work this month.
The ongoing impasse between the state government and the sugar mills has also fuelled reactions from various political parties. Both BJP and the Congress alleged that the state government was hand in glove with the cane mill owners. "How else one would explain that the state government is not able to get the mills operate. The farmers are forced to burn their produce as a result," said UP Congress committee president Nirmal Khatri. He threatened that the Congress party would launch a state wide campaign in case the state government fails to get the mills operated by December 7.
Congress ally, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) is already planning to stage a 'Chakka Jam' across the state on Sunday. Speaking to TOI, RLD state president, Munna Singh Chauhan said that "The state of affairs for the cane growers has gone from bad to worse. There is little they can do," he said. For RLD, which has been losing ground because of the communal violence in west UP, the ongoing cane crisis comes as an opportunity to retain its vote bank.