Less yield drives 4 sugar mills to close in South Gujarat

  • | Saturday | 25th February, 2017

"BSCM crushes sugarcane coming from 57,000 acres of land .The sugar factories that have closed include Madhi Sugar Cooperative Mill, Maroli Sugar, Mandvi Sugar and Valsad Sugar Cooperative Mill. We used to get per acre yield of 29 tonne but this year we are getting only 23-24 tonne per acre." SURAT: With sugarcane production expected to down 30% compared to previous year, at least four sugar mills have downed shutters despite over a month left for harvesting. Last year, production was 105 lakh tonne while this year it is 70 lakh tonne in south Gujarat Pankaj Patel , managing director of Bardoli Sugar Cooperative Mill (BSCM), said, "The problem that the yield this year is 6-7 tonne less per acre. "In Gujarat we are 20-30% short of yield this year, whereas in Maharastra situation is worse.

SURAT: With sugarcane production expected to down 30% compared to previous year, at least four sugar mills have downed shutters despite over a month left for harvesting. Last year, production was 105 lakh tonne while this year it is 70 lakh tonne in south Gujarat Pankaj Patel , managing director of Bardoli Sugar Cooperative Mill (BSCM), said, "The problem that the yield this year is 6-7 tonne less per acre. We used to get about 35 tonne per acre of sugarcane in normal years."BSCM crushes sugarcane coming from 57,000 acres of land .The sugar factories that have closed include Madhi Sugar Cooperative Mill, Maroli Sugar, Mandvi Sugar and Valsad Sugar Cooperative Mill. Whereas other nine are still working at lower capacity, but are likely to close in a month.The basic cause of less yield is lack of rains in June and heavy rains in later part of monsoon.Sameer Bhakta, chairman of Madhi Sugar Cooperative Mill, said, "We have stopped crushing since February 23. We used to get per acre yield of 29 tonne but this year we are getting only 23-24 tonne per acre." The mill gets sugarcane from 30,000 acres of land."In Gujarat we are 20-30% short of yield this year, whereas in Maharastra situation is worse. There yield in down 40% per acre," added Bhakta.Madhi Sugar paid Rs 2,446 per tonne to a farmer whereas Bardoli Sugar paid Rs 2,604.The sugar in the retail market sells at Rs 42-45 per kg at present would be dearer for common man by at least 15% next year.

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