West UP mills cut incentive on cane

Uttar Pradesh sugar mills have decided to reduce incentive on a cane variety grown in the western region of the state due to low juice content.

“We have decided to reduce the incentive on sugarcane State Advised Price (SAP) by Rs 20 from March 23, which will bring down the effective price being paid to farmers to around Rs 250 per quintal for this variety,” UP Sugar Mills Association secretary K N Shukla told Business Standard here.

He said CoSe 92423, which was introduced in West UP last year, contained high fibre, low juice per cent and low recover. Besides it was also affected by smut and early flowering.

This variety has basically been grown for almost a decade in the flood prone areas of East UP and has high fibre content. “It was introduced in West UP on the recommendation of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR),” he added.

The decision was taken at a meeting of West UP Sugar Mills Association at Meerut to review the performance of CoSe 92423.

The millers hope the reduction in incentive would discourage the West UP farmers from planning this variety in future.

Meanwhile, a sugarcane official noted the reduction of incentive would not have any major impact on the farmers’ payments, as the acreage under this variety was not much.

Against the 2009-10 SAP of Rs 165-170 for common and early variety respectively, the mills had been paying hefty incentive taking the price to Rs 280-300 per quintal in UP due to low availability of cane.

So far, UP mills have crushed 58 million tonnes sugarcane, producing 4.8 million tonnes sugar. They have paid Rs 12,000 crore as cane dues.