Sugarcane farming is considered profitable compared to vegetable or traditional grain farming. However, lack of timely payment from the sugarcane mill, the farmers claim, has incurred loss to them. On various occasions, they have taken to streets to draw attention on the matter.
"This is not a new problem. We have staged protested many times to draw attention of the stakeholders. However, our problems have remained unheard," said Pushpendra Bhattarai, a sugarcane farmer, who gave up farming the crop from this year. "How can you continue farming the crop, when you are not paid for your produce? I would never think of quitting this farming if there was no payment issue," he said.
He informed that the situation has gone worse in the recent years. Three years back though it was difficult to receive the payment, it was not impossible. "I used to get paid with some delay three years back. But since then things became intolerable. It began to become impossible to get the payment for your produce," he said. A local of Koshi Churaha- 14, Bhattarai had been farming sugarcane in one and half bigas of land.
Paramananda Yadav, a farmer from Kadmaha village said that he has been in a difficult situation for harvesting this year's sugarcane harvest. As he has not received payment of last year's sugarcane from the mill, he does not have cash to pay for harvesting this year's crop. "If the sugar mill had reimbursed last year's sugarcane amount, I would have sufficient capital for investing in this year's crop. But with the mill showing no signs of paying off, it's becoming hard for me bring resources together to harvest this year's crop,” Yadav said further adding that he is trying to get loan on interest for harvesting the crop. Considering the hassles he has been forced to face since last year, Yadav, who has been doing sugarcane farming in two bigas of land has now decided to either completely give up or lower his production coming year. "I am thinking to farm sugarcane in just five katta of land.
But even that's not easy either if situation remains the same," he said.
Both Yadav and Bhattarai claim that sugarcane farming is five times profitable than traditional farming or vegetable farming, if the farmers are paid on time. However, delayed payment has instead incurred loss to farmers, consequently forcing them to give up sugarcane farming. Yadav informed that he is planning to abandon sugarcane farming only till sugarcane mill starts making payments on time. "I will definitely get back into sugarcane farming when the issue of delayed payment is resolved," he said.
Farmers feel that the situation has been worse due to the monopoly of the Eastern Sugar Mill in the district. "As it is the only sugarcane mill, we don't have any option other than to sell our produce to it. Whether we like it or not, we have to contact the Easter Sugar Mill," Yadav said.
Sugarcane farmers in Morang estimate that they can easily make an annual profit of up to Rs 200,000, provided that the payment is done on time. Both Yadav and Bhattarai urged the government to encourage sugarcane farmers by facilitating relationship between mill owners and farmers stating that the country could be self sufficient in sugar, if issues like this were resolved.
The sugar mill has its own version of the story. Manager of the mill Suresh Meheta claimed that the mill had not been able to pay off the farmers on time due to the lower cost of sugar in the market. “Due to low sugar prices in the market, the mill has been in huge loss over the years and this has forced to delay payments to the farmers,” he said adding "It's not that we don't pay the farmers at all. We pay them, but yes there have been delays."
Meheta opined that the prices of the sugarcane and sugar have not been aligned by the government and this has forced the sugar mill into loss. He opined that the government should fix the rate of sugar and on its basis then fix the sugarcane prices. "We can pay Rs 461 per quintal of sugarcane only if the price of one kg of sugar is Rs 90,” he said adding “Presently, we are selling sugar for Rs 55 per kg.”
Stating that the mill owes around Rs 300 million to the farmers, he said that the mill is hoping to clear the dues very soon. "We are preparing to clear all due payment. Hopefully, we'll be able to do it soon," he said.
"We admit that the payment issue has hit the farmers. Many have stopped doing the farming," he said while informing of sharp decline in sugarcane farming in district. Last year, 1,800,000 quintal of sugarcane was produced in Sunsari and Morang districts. This year, the production fell down to just 1,200,000 quintal, he informed. "We fear that the production might still drop down to 600,000 quintal next year."
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