Sugar factories in Bidar district are staring at a severe shortage of sugarcane, following three years of drought and scarce rainfall this kharif season.
The district has three cooperative factories, two private factories and around 10 ‘khand saris’ or mini-factories that together crush around 25 lakh tonnes of sugarcane every year. But this year, they are faced with the challenge of readjusting their schedules for crushing half or one-thirds of that quantum.
Sugarcane, the only cash crop in the district, is grown on 8 to 10 per cent of the 3.5 lakh hectares of land cultivated every year, depending on the rainfall. Output has wavered from 60 to 80 tonnes a hectare, depending on the year of cultivation, type of soil and cultivation practices of individual farmers. The ambitious “250 tonne per hectare farmers’ association”, formed to increase the yield, has not achieved much.
This year, however, sugarcane is being cultivated on around 19,000 hectares of land. This, farm experts said, was because growers were discouraged by the poor rainfall between 2013 and 2015. Area under pulses has increased because those crops can tolerate low rainfall and also because the cost of cultivation is lesser than that of sugarcane’s, said Ravi Deshmukh, training coordinator at the Krishi Vigyan Kendra.
Farm scientists said sugarcane yield in the district this year could be around 8 to 10 lakh tonnes, thanks to poor rainfall in August and the first week of September.
Umakanth Nagamarapalli, president of the Naranja Sahakari Sakkare Karakhane, who performed a puja to signal the start of maintenance and overhaul operations at the factory two days ago, said, “We are looking at crushing less than average quantum of sugarcane which is 5 to 6 lakh tonnes a year. We don’t know by how much,” he said. He appealed to farmers to repose their trust in the factory by selling their produce to it.
Officials of the Mahatma Gandhi Sahakari Sakkare Karakhane, which crushed between 3 to 4 lakh tonnes annually in the last few years, said it was planning for crushing this season. They did not deliberate on the quantum of sugarcane to be crushed and their schedule.
Cooperation Department officers suspect that Bidar Sahakari Sakkare Karakhane, which is facing debt and other issues, may not start crushing at all.
But what will happen to the three private factories — Bhalkeshwar, Kisan and Bhavani Sugars? How will they source their raw material, a senior officer sought to know. He pointed out that the ‘khand saris’, which crush around 5 to 6 lakh tonnes of sugarcane a year in all, would have to compete with bigger players by offering higher prices, which would not be easy.
“Farmers always tend to suffer — irrespective of whether the yield is more or less. Why is that? The government should focus on finding solutions,” said Vishwanath Patil Koutha, Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha leader. He said factories should crush all the sugarcane grown in the district, without resorting to buying from neighbouring States of Telangana or Maharashtra.
