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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Sugar cane growers decry low prices, lack of water for next crop

By Our Correspondent
February 21, 2018

Sindh’s sugar cane growers’ organisations, supported by civil society activists, have decried the double whammy they say they find themselves stuck, as on the one hand they are unable to get appropriate rates for their produce from sugar mills, and on the other there is a shortage of irrigation water, causing them huge financial losses.

Addressing a joint press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday, representatives of five organisations of growers -- the Sindh Agriculture Research Council, the Farmers Organisation Council, the Sindh Abadgar Association, the Tail Abadgar Association and the Hari Abadgar Ittehad -- urged the sugar cane commissioner of the provincial government to implement the Sindh High Court’s orders for the sugar mills to make payments to growers. Prominent civil society activists Karamat Ali, Qazi Khizar and Shaikh Majeed were also present during the press conference to support the demands of the growers.

“We have faced financial hardships due to non-payments or low rates, delayed payments by sugar mills. Another problem is we are unable to sow the next crop due to a shortage of irrigation water at the tail-end,” said Ali Palh, a representative of the growers.

Palh said the government had issued a notification fixing the price of sugar cane at Rs182 per maund (40kg), but mills had refused to start the crushing. Later, the Sindh High Court fixed the rate at Rs172 for 40kg and then Rs160 per maund, but even those verdicts were not implemented.

Due to the adamant attitude of the sugar mills, the growers were facing hardships, and protest marches, hunger strikes and sit-ins were being held across the province, but the problem was not being resolved, he said.

Currently, Palh said, the sugar mills were purchasing sugar canes at rates ranging from Rs80 to Rs90 a maund through their agents, and they had stopped directly purchasing sugar canes from growers. The mills had stopped issuing the “supply indents” to growers and were just issuing simple chits, on which rates or weights were not written, he added.

Palh said the federal government was providing a subsidy of Rs20 billion to sugar mills, which was directly paid to them but they refused to provide any benefit to growers. “We demand the subsidy amount should be directly paid to sugar cane growers,” he added.

He said everyone knew the sugar mills in Sindh were mostly owned by the families of the ruling political party; therefore, the provincial government was reluctant to provide any support or relief to the growers.

Talking about the shortage of irrigation water at the tail-end of the irrigation system in Sindh, Javed Junejo of the Farmers Organisation Council said that small growers were unable to cultivate crops due to the acute shortage of irrigation water in canals, and they were unable to receive water for even drinking purposes.

He recalled that the Supreme Court of Pakistan, in 2013, had ordered the cancellation of all water courses, which were getting water directly from the canals, but the Sindh government had not implemented that verdict.

The growers’ organisations had organsied a three-day hunger strike outside the Karachi Press Club to voice their demands, and speakers regretted that the provincial government had not taken any notice of their protests.