The cane-crushing season in both the states begins this week and are expecting a sharp 38% fall in sugar output to 53.2 lakh quintal on account of a dip in area under cultivation.
The cane-crushing season in Punjab and Haryana is set to start from November 25, and both the states are expecting a sharp 38% fall in sugar output to 53.2 lakh quintal on account of a dip in area under cultivation.
Despite both the states offering higher state advised price (SAP) to the cane growers compared to other states, the sugar output is set to plummet up to 38% for the current season that could bring down the crushing period from 150 days to 90 days, pointed out experts.
Punjab is expecting sugar output of 23.2 lakh quintal which will be lowest in the past four years, while Haryana is anticipating 30 lakh quintal, according to state officials, who informed that the crushing season will start from November 25.
The preference of farmers to grow wheat and paddy crops over sugarcane has caused 45 to 55 per cent reduction in area under cultivation of cane in both the states during the past two years.
While Punjab has only 63,000 hectare under cane cultivation, Haryana has shown more decline with only 75,000 hectare under cane cultivation against the 1,40,000 hectare in 2007-08.
"The main reason behind fall in sugarcane area was shifting of farmers' preference towards wheat and paddy crops in order to fetch better returns," experts said. With a massive fall in the area under cultivation, total output of sugarcane this year in Punjab would go down to 350 lakh quintal against 564 lakh quintal in the 2008-09 sugar season, while in Haryana it will go down from 513 lakh quintal to 490 lakh quintals in 2009-10, the officials said.
Out of the total cane output, Punjab is anticipating to crush 242 lakh quintal and Haryana 300 lakh quintal in the current season. Though Punjab and Haryana governments have consistently been raising SAP for sugarcane, the area under cultivation has not gone up as desired. Punjab raised the SAP to Rs180, Rs175 and Rs170 per quintal for advanced, medium and late varieties respectively for the 2009-10 crushing season.
Haryana even announced the country's highest ever price of cane at Rs185 per quintal for early varieties, Rs180 for mid varieties and Rs175 for late maturing varieties.
Moreover, it also proposed to give a bonus of Rs25 a quintal to the farmers on the cane supplied to the cooperative sugar mills over and above the cane price fixed by the state government.
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