Delayed sugarcane crushing may cut one million tons wheat output

Delayed sugarcane crushing may lead to considerable--maybe one million tons--reduction in wheat production target of 25 million tons set for 2008-09, sources in the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) told Business Recorder.
Usually, sugarcane crushing starts in October every year, but during the current fiscal year crushing is getting delayed. "The sugar mafia has always been active in making huge profits. The sugar mill owners are reluctant to start sugarcane crushing before middle of December", sources said.
"The basic purpose behind sugarcane crushing delay is to reduce the weight of the sugarcane and increasing sucrose content, which is against the interest of poor growers", they added.
They said that the crop of sugarcane gets matured in 13 months, and total cost of production of sugarcane per acre is approximately Rs 20,000, while the growers get just Rs 22,500 to Rs 23,000 per acre. That is why the farmers are switching from sugarcane to other crops.
The support price of sugarcane was adjusted at Rs 81 per 40 kg--22 percent more than last year. "The farmers have to use 4-5 bags of urea along with 2 bags of DAP per acre to get better yield. Now, as the sugar mill owners are not picking up the crop for crushing, growers would suffer huge loss because the weight of sugarcane starts falling by each passing day after the month of October", sources said.
Pakistan is passing through economic crisis and, according to Sirtaj Aziz, one of the country's top economists, if the country succeeds in achieving the production target of 25 million tons of wheat, then this would certainly increase the percentage of GDP in 2008-09.
Sources said that the government should have announced November 10 as deadline for starting crushing season of sugarcane. Due to delay in payments to sugarcane growers in 2007-08 by the sugar mill owners, the output of the crop would remain 30 to 40 percent less during the current fiscal year as compared to last year.
Sources said that to achieve good yield, wheat sowing should be carried out well in time. Any delay in planting would reduce the yield severely. There may be a reduction of 8, 16, 32 or 50 percent in wheat grain yield for each fortnight after November 10.
In Pakistan wheat, being the staple diet, is the most important crop and is cultivated on largest acreages in almost every part of the country. It contributes 14.4 percent to value-addition in agriculture and 3.0 percent to GDP.