Dindigul sugarcane farmers want better price

Sugarcane farmers in Dindigul face low yield, labor shortage, and procurement price issues ahead of Pongal festival.

With hardly a week for the pongal festival, sugarcane farmers in Dindigul district are in a dilemma as they are facing issues such as low yield, need for an adequate number of farmhands for harvesting and price of procurement.

R. Ganesan, a farmer, said that already the yield was less compared to the previous years. Now he was not finding farmhands for harvesting sugarcane. People were not preferring to work in the fields and were instead engaging themselves in other jobs. Even if they were willing to come to work in the fields they were asking much higher wages, he said.

He said that he had invested close to ₹1 lakh. However, he was not able to get the right procurement price. He has not been able to break even. He was selling at the same price at which he was selling a couple of years ago. He could only break even if a bundle was sold for ₹500.

As part of the pongal gift hamper, the State government was providing one sugarcane to the card-holders. It should be increased to at least two sugarcanes. Four sugarcanes would be even better for the farmers as there would be more procurement from the farmers. The farmers said that they were getting ₹23 per sugarcane and this should be increased.

As the farmers were not making enough profit, many agricultural fields were being sold and were now turning into plots. This was taking place at a rapid pace, he said.

Another farmer, M. Ramakrishnan, said that the people engaged in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme could be engaged as farmhands. The agricultural sector should be given priority. The overall consumption of sugarcane had gone down. Earlier, people were buying in bundles. Now they were buying only one or two sugarcanes, he said.

An official of the Agricultural Department said that sugarcane was being procured only after assessment of the quality and procurement was under way.