UP jaggery units thriving as sugar mills yet to beging crushing

Delay in sugar cane crushing in Uttar Pradesh and private sector mills that crush large chunk of cane staying away opposing the state government’s approach biased towards farmers in insting higher cane prices, the state jaggery industry is getting a boost.

This is because farmers that were facing cash crunch or those that have to keep their farm available for wheat sowing are selling cane to jaggery units at whatever price available.

Compared to previous years, jaggery units in UP are thriving this time with abundance of cane. The adequate supply of cane and that too on never before rates has led to the crash of jaggery prices.

The jaggery in UP is selling at a price of Rs 30 per Kg in retail market while in the wholesale market it is selling at Rs 28 per Kg. According to jaggery unit owner this is the lowest price in the last five years.

In the cane belt of Uttar Pradesh Lakhimpur, Pilibhit, Saharanpur, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Sitapur, Bareilly and Gonda the private sugar mills are yet to announce the start of crushing.

This has forced the small and marginal farmers to start distress sale of cane. According to Harinam Singh of Bhartiya Kisan Union, around 40% of cane farmers go for wheat cultivation after supplying cane to millers. The delay in crushing by miller will deprive them from the wheat crop.

Due to the delay in crushing by sugar mills, cane farmers in UP are selling their produce to jaggery units at Rs 150 to Rs 180 per quintol, a never before price. Last year when sugar cane state advised price (SAP), the price which mills have to pay to farmers for buying cane, was Rs.

280 per quintal, the jaggery units had paid Rs 200 per quintol to the cane farmers in the beginning of the season. According to Baldeo Verma, a jaggery owner in Hargaon of Sitapur district, last season there was no cane available for us after the announcement of SAP. The state government had announced cane SAP on December 7 last year.

According to a wholesale trader in Lucknow, Hari Shankar Shukla, UP contributes 40% of total jaggery production in the country and this year this contribution will be more than 50%. He said that unlike western UP, the jaggery units in central and east use organic methoad of making jaggery.

"They do not use chemicals to clean the cane juice but use roots of lady finger plant for it", said Baldeo. This is one of the reason the jaggery from this region is in great demand.

In UP there are around 23,000 jaggery units of last only 14,000 units were operational last year. This year all of them are operational and besides atleast 5000 new units have come up.

It may be mentioned that sugar millers in UP have been asking state government to announce cane SAP before the start of crushing. While millers have been mounting pressure to reduce cane SAP from 280 per quintal to Rs 240, the farmers have been demanding it to be fixed at Rs 300 per quintal as is being announced by few other states.