Farmers in a fix as millers stop sugarcane crushing in Punjab

LAHORE: The sugar-mill owners on Sunday stopped crushing sugarcane across Punjab, as they are no more buying the crop from farmers.

The growers are perturbed over the abrupt closing down of sugar mills and they have asked the government to intervene in the issue immediately. The delay in crushing will mean huge loss to farmers as weight of sugarcane is reduced if it is not processed by the mills after harvesting, said Ibrahim Mughal, chairman Agri-Forum Pakistan.

Ch Waheed of Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA), however, claimed that farmers are not supplying sugarcane to mills. He insisted that mills could not be run if there is no supply of sugarcane from growers. He also criticised the government for fixing, what he called, unrealistic price of sugarcane, saying price of sugar would increase subsequently and it would be hard for consumer to buy the commodity.

The Punjab government upward revised the price of sugarcane at Rs190 for the current crushing season. However, sugar mill owners did not accept the decision and they were reluctant to start crushing earlier this month. However, after the intervention of the government, the mills launched crushing but buying from farmers could not be picked up.

It is learnt that the mill owners decided on Saturday to close down the mills from Sunday and stop purchase of sugarcane from farmers. The mills in south and central Punjab are not working as per decision taken by PSMA.

According to an official of Punjab Food Department, the provincial government is in contact with the sugar mill owners in this regard. He expressed the hope that mills would start crushing from Monday (today). He said the government would ensure that farmers get the price, announced by the government.

Earlier, Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) and Kissan Board Pakistan (KBP) expresseddismay over delaying tactics being used by the mill owners and apathy of the government. They had asked the government to streamline issues related to sugarcane crushing in order to enable them to sow wheat well in time.

The crushing should have been started by last week of November, but the issue is lingering on with no fault of farmers, they added. It is deplorable that farmers are at receiving end due to apathy of the government as well as anti-farmer attitude of the powerful sugar mill owners, they observed.