UP CANE PRICING IMPASSE NEARS SOLUTION; FARMERS STILL UNHAPPY

LUCKNOW: The continuing deadlock between sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh and its 40 lakh cane farmers over the pricing of sugarcane has taken a curious turn, with the entire industry being held in suspended animation and both the players waiting for the other to blink first even as Union Agriculture and food minister Sharad Pawar and Uttar Pradesh Cane Minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui have set deadlines for the sugar mills to start crushing cane at the earliest.

The hassled farmers have refused to budge, thereby bringing not only sugar production in the State to a grinding halt, but also delaying their own prospects of sowing rabi crops such as wheat and potato.

While the millers have been forced to buckle under the incessant and prolonged protests of farmers, revising their earlier stand of sticking to the fair and remunerative price (FRP) of Rs.129.80 as declared by the Centre to that of adhering to the State Advised Price (SAP) of Rs.165-170, and then declaring an additional incentive of Rs.15/- quintal, farmers are still not happy.

Having managed to hold their flock together so far, they are batting for more incentive before they give in. “Our demand is Rs.280/- quintal but with time running out for sowing other crops, we will settle for anything in between Rs.215-225. After all, mills in Haryana, which is just across UP’s border, are paying 211/quintal. Even Maharashtra sugar mills, which follow the Centre’s SMP and now FRP regime, are paying Rs.210/-quintal. Then why should farmers of Uttar Pradesh get a raw deal, especially in a year when drought and floods have increased our production costs on one hand and millers are taking in huge profits due to the rising prices of sugar on the other? Asks Joginder Singh, a farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri.

In fact, the farmers’ agitation, which had stated in the western part of Uttar Pradesh, has now spread to the Central and Eastern parts as well, with farmers in Gorakhpur, Basti, Sitapur and Lakhimpur also resorting to demonstrations and protests.

Stating that the fight of the farmers is with the State Government and not with the Centre, VM Singh of the Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan said that the issue of FRP is irrelevant in Uttar Pradesh. “By trying to take this fight to the Centre, politicians have diverted the entire issue and have done more harm to farmers than good. Since the State Government has the mandate to issue cane reservation orders, we are governed by SAP. At all our reservation meetings, we had demanded that the state declare SAP at Rs.280/ quintal, as that is what we actually deserve. But despite that, the government has declared SAP at Rs.165-170/quintal, thereby playing into the hands of the millers,” he said, adding that he has now floated a suggestion to the farmers that since the confusion created by politicians has done a lot of harm to their stand of getting Rs.280 for cane, and a lot of time has been lost as well, they can individually talk to millers and fix a minimum threshold price at which they can supply cane and facilitate crushing. But before doing that, they must take an undertaking from mills that whatever will be the maximum amount that they will pay for the cane this season, that amount will be deemed as the price for the season and all the farmers will get paid that amount from the first day of crushing.

But how much the millers will be willing to abide by this formula needs to be seen as they have been continuously saying that the Central government’s decision to increase the levy per centage from 10% to 20% to meet the demand of the public distribution system at subsidized rates, which is well below the cost of production, will substantially bring down the overall realization of factories and thereby also curtail their cane price paying capacity.

-Deepa Jainani
THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS
16 Nov. 2009