Sugarcane: now a headache for farmers

Hamidul Haq, a sugarcane grower in Basantapur village of Rangpur's Badarganj upazila, is fearing huge losses this year as the government has shut down six state-run sugar mills out of 15 just before the harvesting season.

Haq, who has been growing the crop for the last 15 years, said he had invested every penny he had to produce 340 quintals of sugarcane on his one-acre land this year.

But this year he fell into big trouble as Shyampur Sugar Mill turned out to be one of the closed mills, where Haq used to sell his produce at Tk 350 a quintal, or 100 kilograms.

The seasoned farmer said there are nearly 16,000 farmers like him and all of them are struggling to find a mill to crush their produce since the closure of the local one.

"If harvested late, each quintal of sugarcane gets reduced to 40 kg. So, I would be finished if I can't harvest and crush the crop on time."

Following a government order on December 2, the Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industry Corporation informed that production at sugar mills in Pabna, Shyampur, Panchagarh, Setabganj, Rangpur and Kushtia would remain halted until further notice.

"Sugarcane is mainly harvested in December, January and February to crush and extract the highest amount of sugar," Md Shahjahan Ali Badsha, secretary of the Sugarcane Farmers' Association, told The Daily Star.

The crop starts to dry up from the end of February and turns into dry sticks in March and April, he said.

Most of the mills complete sugarcane crushing within February, he said. "So, all are in a hurry to harvest the sugarcane and crush them as early as possible."

"I may have to discard my plan to cultivate paddy after sugarcane due to the uncertainty over sugarcane harvesting this year," said Ramjan Ali, a farmer of Sara Gopalpur village in Pabna who produced sugarcane on a three-bigha land.

Farmers of the catchment areas of the mills use to prefer cultivating sugarcane because of higher returns compared to other crops, said Md Shahan Hossain, another farmer from Ali's village.

"I cultivated sugarcane by taking a five-bigha land on lease at Tk 40,000 this year on condition that I will make the land free within December."

Hossain said he has already spent Tk 1 lakh with on the expectation to earn Tk 2 lakh. "Now, I am feeling devastated due to the closure of Pabna Sugar Mill."

The sugar mill authority is yet to start buying sugarcane from the farmers, he said, adding that: "If I can't sell sugarcane within this month, I have to burn the crop."

"Farmers always cultivate one crop after another. We don't stay for one crop. If we don't harvest sugarcane within the next few days, we may miss the next crop cultivation season and count even bigger losses," said Motiur Rahman, another farmer.

Despite the closure, the mills will continue purchasing sugarcane and send those to the closest mills for crushing.

Ashraf Ali, who also lives in Basantapur village, said he came to know that the Shyampur mill would take sugarcane on a small scale from farmers this year and will crush those at Joypurhat Sugar Mill.

Sugarcanes collected from farmers in Dinajpur, Thakurgaon and Panchagarh will be sent to Thakurgaon for crushing this year.

This year around 1.45 lakh tonnes of sugarcane will be crushed at Thakurgaon sugar mill starting from December 18, and the mill would require at least five months to crush the sugarcanes.

"Over 72,000 tonnes of sugarcane will be produced in Pabna Sugar Mill zone this year, and we will send those for crushing to North Bengal Sugar Mill in Natore," said Md Saif Uddin, managing director of Pabna Sugar Mill.

"We have decided to buy at least 700 tonnes of sugarcane every day to supply to North Bengal Sugar Mill."

Around 1.42 lakh tonnes of sugarcane will be produced in areas surrounding North Bengal Sugar Mill this year, said Md Humayun Kabir, managing director of the mill.

"We wanted to operate the mill for 114 days from December 11 and crush 1,600 tonnes of sugarcane every day."

Kabir said his mill had been burdened with the pressure of crushing an additional 72,000 tonnes of Pabna Sugar Mill zone, as his mill is the closest one to the Pabna mill.

"To crush all the sugarcane of Pabna and North Bengal mill zones, we need to operate the mill for a minimum of 160 days, which is quite impossible."

So, the North Bengal Sugar Mill has decided to operate the mill for 134 days to crush a total of 2.14 lakh tonnes of sugarcane, he said.

However, the Pabna correspondent of The Daily Star did not find any activity while visiting different purchasing centres of Pabna Sugar Mill zone last Friday, as the mill authority was yet to start purchasing sugarcane from farmers.

"All the matured sugarcane will be damaged if these are not harvested in the next two months," said Hamidar Rahman, general secretary of the Dinajpur chapter of Sugarcane Farmers' Association.

Such a problem could have been avoided easily if the functional mills started crushing at least 45 days earlier, he said.

Rahman, also the leader of the cane farmers, urged the government to resume crushing at the closed six mills for this season at least to save the farmers from incurring huge loses.

"The government should come forward to save the farmers this year. The next year they will be able to switch to other crops."