PESHAWAR : The sugarcane growers have expressed concerns over increase in fertilisers and urged the government to fix the sugarcane price at Rs250 per 40 kilogram so that they could meet the expenditures incurred on its cultivation.
“On one hand the government has increased the price of fertilisers manifold and on the other the price of sugarcane is not fixed reasonably to enable the growers to meet their expenses,” the farmers said in a joint statement.
They said that owners of mills were not ready to start crushing of sugarcane that would cause delay in cultivation of wheat crop. The best season for cultivation of wheat, they said, was up to November 20 but it did not seem to start due to delay in cutting of sugarcane.
They said that delay in cultivation of wheat would also cause reduction in the yield and its ultimate result would be increase in the price of wheat fl our. The unprecedented increase in price of fertilisers, they said, had badly affected the poor farmers, especially in the remote localities.
Former provincial minister Hafiz Hashmat Khan told this scribe that government was using different tactics to dodge the farmers. He said that in the past the millers used to purchase per 40 kilograms sugarcane at Rs350 but its price was gradually decreased.
He said that current rate was about Rs155 that did not suit the growers.
“When we talk to the millers for increase in the sugarcane price, they pretend that they have stocked sugar and unable to pay the enhanced price to growers any longer,” said the former minister.
He urged the government to keep in view the problems of growers and fix a reasonable price of sugarcane so that owners of mills would start crushing and enable the growers to cultivate wheat at the earliest.
