Farmers worry about worsening wheat crisis

If sugarcane crushing doesn't begin on time, wheat sowing will be delayed, cautions SCA

HYDERABAD:

Farmers have warned of a worsening wheat crisis if the crushing of sugarcane does not begin on time this year.

Sindh Chamber of Agriculture president Syed Meeran Muhammad Shah asked the Sindh government on Saturday to ensure the crushing began on November 1 while also making sure the sugar mills' boilers started from October 15.

"If the sugarcane isn't cleared from the fields on time, it will delay the sowing of wheat [on the same land] and consequently cause a drop in [wheat] production," he cautioned at a press conference in Hyderabad.

The country is already facing a wheat shortage that has resulted in flour price hikes and necessitated spending foreign exchange reserves on wheat import. Shah recalled that Sindh's sugar mills had been delaying the purchase of cane over the years, delaying the wheat sowing process and lowering the province's harvest.

He demanded that the sugarcane price be increased to Rs300 per kg - nearly double the current price - arguing that the mills were netting great profits already.

The SCA further asked the Sindh government to implement court orders for mills to pay farmers their arrears and premiums before the crushing season began.

Moreover, the lobbying group sought financial relief for rain-hit farmers through the waiving of taxes and loan repayments for two years, as well as the provision of new interest-free loans.

Shah stated that the rain-triggered flooding from the Left Bank Outfall Drain inundated 300,000 to 400,000 acres of land, devastating Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Sanghar and Nawabshah.

He called for the provincial government to arrest corrupt irrigation officials who had embezzles the funds earmarked for desilting and reinforcing the LBOD. "The plundered public funds should be recovered from them and spent on the waterway," he insisted.

Besides, the body sought the fixing of the cotton support price at Rs5,000 per 40kg, that for wheat at Rs2,000 per 40kg and that of rice at Rs1,800 per kg, with growers complaining that spurious cotton seed from Punjab lowered the yield and deprived farmers of billions of rupees in income.

Separately, the Sindh Abadgar Ittehad president, Nawaz Zubair Talpur, said the Punjab government had amended the law regulating the sugar mills to protect cane growers. But, he lamented, the Sindh government continued to side with the sugar mills. He too warned that delay in cane crushing would affect the cultivation of wheat in Sindh.

 

 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2020.