November 17: Sugarcane production has declined by 1.15 million metric tons in the last six years. The production decreased after the farmers repeatedly faced problems in the payment of sugarcane sold on credit. The data provided by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development shows that sugarcane production is declining in recent years.

According to the data of the ministry, 4.3 million metric tons of sugarcane were produced in the country in the fiscal year 2015/16. Coming to the year 2020/21, sugarcane production has dropped to 3.1 million metric tons. Compared to the fiscal year 2015/16, sugarcane production in FY 2020/21 dropped by 1.1 metric tons.

During this period, the area for sugarcane cultivation also decreased by 16,500 hectares. In FY 2015/16, sugarcane was cultivated in 80,900 hectares of land, but in FY 2020/21, it has reduced to 64,300 hectares.

While sugar is being imported from abroad to meet the domestic demand, it has been observed that the production of sugarcane, the raw material of sugar, is decreasing. The data confirms that sugarcane production is continuously declining along with the area of sugarcane cultivation as the sugar mills started giving trouble to the farmers by not paying them on time under various pretexts.

Kapil Mani Mainali, central president of the Sugarcane Producers' Federation, said that the main reason for the continuous decline in sugarcane production graph in Nepal is the payment problem and non-fixation of prices according to production costs.

"To get money for their hard work, the sugarcane farmers had to protest at Maitighar Mandala every year. The sugarcane farmers had to leave all other jobs and come from the Terai in the bitter cold and protest at Maitighar for months. So, sugarcane farmers looked for an alternative. Now the farmers have left sugarcane farming and are engaged in vegetable and fruit farming," he told New Business Age.

According to Mainali, the government has not fixed the price of sugarcane according to the production cost in the last five years. In 2017, the government had fixed the price of sugarcane at Rs 536.56 per quintal. Since then, the government has increased the price of sugarcane by only Rs 54 per quintal, even though the price of labour, fertilizer and seeds has doubled. Last year, the government fixed the support price of sugarcane at Rs 590 per quintal.