‘Need to develop cane varieties benefiting mills, farmers’

While cane sugar scores strikingly over any other form of raw material for producing sugar, the challenges facing sugarcane agriculture is pretty huge, said Mr N. Ramanathan, Managing Director, Ponni Sugars, and President, The Southern India Sugar Mills Association – TN.

Listing the challenges in cane agriculture, at the inaugural session of the two day ‘Sugarcane Breeding Institute – Indian Sugar Industry: National Interactive Workshop’ sponsored by SISMA –TN, to commemorate SBI’s centenary celebrations at The Residency here, Mr Ramanathan said the foremost challenge is in increasing cane production to meet the ever growing demand for sugar.

“While India accounts for 17.5 per cent of world population, our share of land area is just 2.3 per cent. Galloping income and rising domestic consumption would necessitate continual expansion of land under cultivation and that too under cane crop,” he said.

Diminishing interest in agriculture due to falling net return from crops is driving people away from agriculture to industry. “While this cannot be faulted in a growing economy, we need to reignite and rejuvenate the entrepreneurial spirit of the Indian farmer. Our policies should aim at risk mitigation measures and commensurate returns from agriculture.”

Farm labour

Yet another challenge is non-availability of farm labour. “It is becoming unaffordable rather than scarce labour. Farmers, therefore, find it difficult and unviable to get on with cultivation or harvest of sugarcane or other crops.”

“Sugarcane, despite being a source of green power and ethanol from sugar industry, is often accused as a water-guzzler. Non-pricing of water and electricity has, in a way, disincentivised water conservation measures. Growing ecological concern is forcing the cane farmer to grow the crop with available or depleting water resource.”

Finally, as the industry moves from control to competitive era, there is a need to build in synergies between the diverse stakeholders, he said and explained how in a controlled era, farmers fought for higher cane prices, embraced varieties that promised higher yield, while mills clamoured for lower cane prices citing falling sugar prices and embattled for high sucrose varieties. “There is little room for such ‘either or’ approach. We must have cane varieties that co-create value for both – the mill and the farmer.”

He said that it would not be long before the Indian sugar industry, which remained under the vestiges of state control for decades, would soon be decontrolled. “Free economy would provide limitless scope for innovation and growth,” he added.

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