Delayed purchasing: Farmers want sugarcane price raised

HYDERABAD: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, a farmers' lobbying group, has demanded to fix Rs185 per 40 kilogrammes (kg) as the official rate for sugarcane. This is Rs5 higher than what Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asked the provinces to fix. A meeting of the chamber on Sunday, attended by farmers from several districts of Sindh, decried that neither have the sugar mills begun purchasing sugarcane from the farmers nor has the Sindh government set the price. According to Sindh Sugar Factories Control Act, the mills have to burn their boilers and start buying the crop from October 1. Any delay can be penalised as a violation. The representatives expressed fears that the cane procurement may be delayed, like last year when the mills agreed to pay only Rs162 per 40kg and the cane procurement commenced three to four months late.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 23^rd,  2015.