Kolhapur : Sugar cane growers from Maharashtra and Karnataka will march to Hubballi on Sept 29 and stage a protest outside Union food and public distribution minister Prahlad Joshi ’s residence, escalating pressure on Centre to raise the minimum support price (MSP) of sugar and increase ethanol procurement rates.
“Fix sugar MSP at Rs 50 per kg and ethanol price at Rs 70 per litre. The farmer leader also announced that the annual Us Parishad, a key gathering of sugar cane growers, will be held at Jaysingpur in Kolhapur district on Oct 10. Therefore, we have decided to hold a massive protest outside Joshi’s native place in Hubballi,” he said.
Shetti said the core issue lay with policies controlled by Centre, particularly sugar and ethanol pricing. The announcement came even as the Maharashtra cabinet decided to support sugar mills through soft loans and financial assistance for clearing pending Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) dues from the previous season and for the upcoming crushing season. It is in the hands of central govt.
Announcing the agitation in Kolhapur on Tuesday, Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana chief Raju Shetti said the protest was aimed at securing better returns for sugar mills so they could, in turn, pay higher rates to farmers.
Maharashtra typically crushes around 1,000 to 1,200 lakh tonnes of sugar cane. A drop in recovery could reduce total sugar production by an estimated 12 to 18 lakh tonnes,” he said. “Due to immature sugar cane, sugar recovery is expected to drop by 1.2 to 1.5% this season. “Because next year’s FRP depends on this year’s recovery rate, farmers risk taking a hit of roughly Rs 500 to Rs 550 per tonne for next season’s cane.
Moreover, central govt’s ban on producing ethanol from B-heavy molasses and sugar cane syrup is directly burdening farmers and cooperative sugar mills,” Shetti said.