TimesView For years, sugarcane has been the golden goose for farmers. Though it is water-intensive and stands in the field all year long, farmers have given up pulses and millets to cultivate sugarcane since it fetches higher prices. This, however, might not hold true anymore. Successive droughts have increased the stress on sugarcane farmers, resulting in mounting debt; this has been worsened by delayed payments by sugar mills. Government data shows that sugarcane yield has fallen by nearly 30% between 2009-10 and 2016-17. It’s time Karnataka stopped following Maharashtra’s disastrous sugar formula and reinvented crop management. The government must set aside political considerations and crack down on mill owners, many of them powerful legislators and ministers, to ensure farmers get their dues in full and at the earliest.

WHY FARMERS DON’T SWITCH TO OTHER CROPS

BENGALURU: If it’s been a bitter harvest almost every year in recent times for sugarcane farmers in the state, put it down to the government’s lack of will to regulate sugar mills.The mills — many owned by politicians — and cane growers have been at loggerheads since the Centre in 2012 started fixing the price for sugarcane. The main issues of contention are: arriving at a fair price for the crop, payments within a prescribed time, clearance of dues and the matter of which side bears the harvesting and transportation (H&T) cost. Prior to that, the farmers and mill owners sorted out these matters themselves.Experts say the primary issue that the government has to address to resolve the imbroglio is to find a way to determine a fair price for cane and ensure that both farmers and mill owners follow the price it fixes. The Centre currently announces a fair and remunerative price (FRP) for sugarcane each year. No mill can pay less than FRP, which varies depending on the recovery percentage — the amount of sugar produced when cane is processed. States like Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh have separate laws to fix a state advisory price (SAP), with the FRP as base.Karnataka too had a similar law to determine the SAP but the Siddaramaiah government gave it the go-by in 2015, amending the law on pressure from mill owners and complicating what has become an annual price tussle. While farmers demand more than FRP, arguing that it doesn’t include the H&T cost, mills cite financial constraints to reject the claim.The absence of government control has led to an ad hoc system in which farmers and mill owners orally agree upon a price which inevitable turns into a bone of contention, forcing the state to step in. “Wanting to start crushing at the earliest, mill owners agree to pay whatever price the farmers demand and backtrack later. This leads to protests by farmers every year,” said Mallikarjun Vali, former director, Malaprabha Cooperative Sugar Mill, MK Hubli, Belagavi.An increase in number of sugar mills and competition for cane also forces mill owners to offer farmers attractive prices. Since there are no documents to prove that mills owners committed to a particular price, neither the farmers nor the government take them to court, he said.Farmers also dismiss sugar mills’ claim that they have incurred losses due to falling sugar prices in the open market. “It’s a plain lie,” said Allamprabhu Patil, a sugarcane grower from Athani. “If they are incurring losses, why is that so many new sugar mills are coming up? And why are mills modernising and increasing capacity in a big way?”Former minister S R Patil, who attended chief minister HD Kumaraswamy’s meeting with sugar mill owners on Thursday, however, says the mill owners have the interest of farmers at heart. “When the price of sugar falls from ?35/kg to ?26/kg, how can it not affect the revenue of factories?”Clearing bills in time is another sticking point. The Karnataka Sugarcane (Regulation of Purchase and Supply) Act, 2013 mandates that mills clear bills, at one go, within 14 days of receiving sugarcane consignments. No factory follows the rule. The act also says farmers and mills must share profits at a 70:30 ratio after the farmers are paid FRP. But farmers say factories have not complied with this either.“They adjust their accounts so there’s nothing left to share with farmers,” says Subhash Shirabur, former member of Karnataka Sugarcane Control Board.The farmers allege that mills also fudge weight and recovery figures. “The government must keep an eye on these things,” said Mallikarjun, the manager of a cooperative sugar mill in Belagavi district.Basavaprabhu Patil, another farmer from Athani, says cane growers’ problems can be solved only with active participation of the government in fixing the price, ensuring transparency in weighing, determining the recovery and making mills pay on time. “The government may not have power to fix the price but what is stopping it from making mills negotiate the price in the presence of officials so mills cannot backtrack later? If government wants to do this, it is not a big deal,” Patil said.Despite having to battle each year, first for a fair price and then to secure payments, farmers are reluctant to switch to any other crop because sugarcane offers a secure and sustained source of income owing to demand for sugar all through the year. A sugarcane farmer earns from ?25,000 to ?30,000 per acre each year. Sugarcane is also a resilient grass that needs little care during cultivation.