Sunday November 8, 01:27 AM

Source: Indian Express Finance

Sweet & Sour

By Deepa Jainani
Western Uttar Pradesh is burning. The sugarcane rich belt, which is the backbone of India s economy, has reaped a bitter harvest this year. At a time when prices of the finished commodity are touching never-before-heights the world over, especially in the backdrop of a severe cane crisis, growers were hoping of garnering better returns on their investments. But with both the central and the state governments caught in a slanging match over the ownership right of fixing cane prices on behalf of the farmers with their respective fair and remunerative price (FRP) and state advisory price (SAP) regimes, thanks to the politically sensitive nature of the cash crop, the actual growers are finding themselves to be outsiders in the issue. Forced into a situation where they have to accept whatever pittance the political masters fix for them, the farmers have no other way to express their anger, anguish and betrayal but to set fire to the very crop which they have tended to through heavy odds of drought and floods for the last 10 months. For some, the situation is so helpless that they have taken the extreme step of setting fire to themselves along with their fields. This year has been especially bad. Drought was followed by floods. Our irrigation costs have gone up substantially and we have tilled our lands by taking loans. After all this, if we are not able to recover our input costs, then what good is this crop to us? We might as well burn it. It is the only form of protest that a farmer can take to, says Lakhan Singh, a small farmer who has a standing cane crop on his 3 acres plot in Seedki village on the Saharanpur-Muzaffarnagar road. The situation has turned so volatile that for the first time in many years, circumstances are such that hitherto warring farmer leaders, for whom control over the maximum number of farmers has always been a prestige issue, have all set aside their personal difference and party affiliations and joined ranks to shore up the common grievance of the farmer. While the leaders amongst the farmers mouth political statements of a sell-out to the powerful sugar lobby by both the state and central governments, the ordinary farmer is only concerned about getting a reasonable return on his cane crop and then getting the fields ready for the next one. Since the price of cane is not yet settled, mills have not started operations, as a result of which we are not able to harvest our crop. And since we are not evacuating the fields, we cannot start off with wheat sowing, which we should have ideally done by the first week on November. That means we lose out on both the crops: sugarcane and wheat. Our entire earning pattern and economy is at stake, forcing us on the verge of penury and the country on the brink of food crisis, says Vikas Baliyan, a farmer in Muzaffarnagar, adding that agitation is the last resort of the farmer. Our country has been known the world over as the exporter of food products. But such have been the policies of successive central and state governments, that we have now turned into an importer of food items, says Farmers Forum s Yogesh Dahiya. Spelling out the sugar economics, Dahiya says, Cane is a perishable item and so cannot be stored. Farmers who have sown the crop will be forced to sell it either to kolhus or to mills at whatever price they are paying this year. They have no choice. But this will be an eye opener and will leave a big impact next year, when exasperated by the constant haggling over prices and litigation, farmers may decide not to sow cane. As it is, sugarcane cultivation in the state is severe dwindling. The area under cane cultivation this year has shrunk by almost 20-25% from that of last year, he states. The results are already visible. Despite being the world s largest consumer of sugar (25% of the world s sugar demand is from India), till last year the country had managed to export sugarcane. But this year, it has been forced to turn into an importer, having contracted around 5 MT of sugar to meet its demands. UP contributes to a large extent to the country s sugar kitty. Ironically, despite having the biggest sugar crushing capacity of 7.5 lakh TCD, which is much higher than Maharashtra s 4.5 lakh TCD, UP has always lagged behind in sugar production due to both shortage of cane and low yield. The shortage of cane is the direct fallout of the disenchantment of the farmers towards cultivating cane. As things stand now, the situation is set to turn worse. The disinterest of the farmers is already palpable with many voicing that they will take to agro forestry and other remunerative crops such as wheat and paddy from the coming year, as it is more remunerative. And if that happens, it may turn into an apocalypse for the industry barons. If more and more farmers switch to planting eucalyptus or poplar trees under agro forestry, it will spell doom for the sugar economy, as these plantings have a cycle of at least 6-10 years. The only form of protest likely by the poor and helpless farmer is to switch his interests to show his disenchantment, says Dahiya. Already unhappy with the millers, who are yet to clear off the cane arrears of the 2006-07 and 2007-08 crushing period, the farmers are preferring to get an instant payment between Rs 210-240/quintal from the string of kolhus dotting both sides of the roads all along the sugarcane growing districts. In Muzaffarnagar, about 5,000 kolhus are doing brisk business with tractor trolleys laden with cane making a beeline for them. Sadly, the capacity of these kolhus does not match up to our production. They have a limited capacity to crush around 100 quintals of cane a day only. This will not take care of all our cane, says Jawaharlal, a farmer of Purkazi village falling in the cusp of Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar. For the septuagenarian farmers messiah, Mahendra Singh Tikait, who has always had an ear to the ground, the present imbroglio verges on backstabbing the helpless farmers. Perched on his charpoy, smoking a hookah, he looks bewildered when asked whether he would lead the farmers agitation for better price recovery despite poor health. Agitation, against whom? No one is an outsider here. There is so much in sugarcane that everyone can have a share. Every product from cane can be used and has a value. Apart from sugar, bagasse, molasses and even press mud can be used. Nothing goes waste. When mills are raking in benefits from a higher margin from sugar, some of this has to be passed on to the farmers too, he says, adding that just like when a producer of any product fixes the price of it after taking into account the total cost incurred on it plus a profit margin, farmers too must have the right to fix the price of his produce. After all, he is the best judge to know what cost he has incurred on it after taking into account the calamities and the non availability of adequate water, power and fertilisers, not the government officials or even the scientists doing research in the labs, he adds. Threatening both the state and the centre, he says, Waqt hai abhi, sudhar jao. Main beemar hoon, magar thaka nahi hoon abhi . Farmers feel that the governments have, in connivance with the sugar lobby, found out ways of wiping them out. Mills have already started importing raw sugar from Brazil, which is costing them about Rs 340-350 a quintal after refining. And now the government has also allowed them to multi-fuel usage, which would mean that they would not need bagasse from cane to run their boilers. This is a conspiracy to wipe us out, says farmer Vikas Baliyan. However, mill managements deny any such move. A mill of a prominent group in the region says, The farmers and millers are not adversaries. We are both dependent on each other. Politicians are playing games with us. The sugar pricing issue should be best left to us. We can come to a mutually agreed price. The government needs to be out of this formula, says a representative of the group, adding that the farmers have a choice of not sowing cane the next season, but having made an investment of about Rs 30-40 crore on setting up a mill, the sugar companies have no choice but to run it. We will sit idle if farmers move away from cane. So we are not doing this purposefully. We too, have heavy inventory costs to take into account while fixing cane prices, he adds. However, despite the despair among farmers , some progressive farmers are ready to take over from the iconic Mahendra Singh Tikait on issues that are plaguing them. Says Virendra Mohan Singh, who heads the Rashtriya Krishi Mazdoor Sangathan, Earlier leaders used to say something and farmers toed their line. The situation isn t the same any longer. Now the farmers decide what they want and farm leaders have no choice but to agree. The common man s agenda has forced us to break party lines and come together to give voice to their demands as they are not able to communicate their grievances . Adds Yogesh Dahiya, The fifth and final report of MS Swaminathan, submitted to the government in 2006, clearly states that a 40%-50% of the farmers want to move away from farming due to non-remunerative prices, and the only reason that they are not doing so is because they do not have an alternative. It clearly says that in order to keep the farmers stick to their core, they must be given remunerative prices for their crops, which should include all costs of cultivation plus 50% minimum returns. But see what is happening in the case of cane. Are we getting remunerative prices? What we are getting in the name of FRP is a sad joke on the farmers, he says.