State ownership can develop the sugar industry

AB Siddique :

The demand of sugar within the country is about 2.2 million tons. Out of this, the production of state-owned sugar balls is 8.9 lakh tonnes. The rest has to be imported. As many as 9 out of 15 sugar mills are operational now.

The rest have closed down due to the lack of raw material, sugarcane. The total sugar production capacity of Bangladesh is expected to decrease due to closure of old sugar mills.

According to the decision taken on December 2, the mills that were closed earlier have been decided to be supplied with supply sugarcane, but there are fears about meeting the target set by them.

There is a risk that sugarcane will not be added to newly opened mills if farmers reduce sugarcane cultivation. This can increase losses.

Although the capacity utilization in the running mills is higher than before, the threshing days may not be extended as planned during the threshing season due to lack of co-ordination.

If more sugarcane becomes millable at the same time and on the other hand there is no supply of sugarcane at a particular time, the millable cane may be wasted due to late milling. Losses may occur due to reduction in extraction rate.

A decrease in extraction rate may lead to reverse losses. Already they do not get supplies in their own areas, there are various irregularities in getting supplies.

Farmers will not be able to take sugarcane and sell it, do not cultivate sugarcane. In Rangpur, a farmer burnt three bigha of sugarcane in protest against the mill closure.

His statement is “If sugarcane is given in Jaipurhat sugar mill which is smaller than Rangpur sugar mill, the sugarcane will dry up in the land. They will not be able to thresh sugarcane even in six months.

As a result, it will not be possible to plant rice. So if the sugarcane is burnt, paddy can be planted in the next Boro season.”

From that thought he set fire to his sugarcane field. It may be noted that BSFIC has given instructions to take sugarcane from Rangpur (RSM) and Shyampur (ShSM) sugar mills.

According to farmers, it takes an average of six-seven hours to transport sugarcane from Rangpur sugar mill to Joypurhat (JSM) taking into account road conditions, traffic jams, and truck speed, apart from load, unload.

If the risk of fetching from a faraway place is large. A farmer told Time TV that it took him four days to bring sugar to Jaipurhat. While waiting, the sugarcane dried up. After such experience, it can be predicted that sugarcane farmers will reduce sugarcane cultivation.

At least that’s what their protests suggest. Again, if manpower is reorganized but they are not utilized properly but on the other hand they have to be paid, then the possibility of loss may increase from that side as well. A local economic dependency developed around the sugar mills.

Pressmud made from sugarcane waste is used as fertilizer in the surrounding agriculture. As the mill closes, there will be no more of this supply of fertilizer. A mercantile class has also developed by buying and selling bagasse and molasses.

They will suffer financially. Residential areas, schools, colleges, hotels, restaurants, markets, transport systems, banks and other service institutions have been built around the mill area.

The business of these institutions depends on the workers of the mills. The local economy will suffer due to joblessness. Social, political, and cultural life will also be disturbed by unemployment.

Apart from the financial loss, these losses have to be paid to the people who are not responsible for the management of the sugar mill. Slowly developing townships in each region will suffer as they will pay the price of corruption and mismanagement.

The problems of the state-owned sugar industry and sugarcane cultivation are not new and the ways to solve them have been known for a long time. But even after being aware of these specific problems, without taking specific steps to solve them, the opposite activity continues to intensify this crisis.

Below are some other recommendations on how mills can be used in public interest without closing the mills:
To ensure availability of sugarcane, the sugarcane must be paid as soon as the sugarcane is sold.

For this purpose, necessary funds should be allocated in the budget for the sugar mills. All irregularities in distribution of supplies must be stopped.

To increase the average yield per acre from the present 18-20 tonnes to 30 tonnes, cultivation of existing high-yielding and high-sugar disease-resistant varieties should be increased.

Farmers should be supplied with treated seeds, fertilizers and production materials on time.

In this case, all irregularities must be removed. The modern variety of sugarcane does not last long, it quickly becomes diseased due to various reasons and the yield decreases.

As a result, BSRI has to continuously release new varieties to ensure good yield under regular adverse conditions.

To this end, the institutional problems of BSRI, such as shortage of parent varieties capable of flowering, problems of light and temperature control in breeding, etc., need to be solved.

While harvesting sugarcane, early sugarcane should be harvested first, then early, medium and nabi sugarcane respectively and threshing should be completed within 24 to 48 hours after sugarcane harvesting. Sufficient trucks-trailers-tractors should be arranged by sugar mills to transport more and more sugarcane on time. Sugar mill machinery should be modernized.

Factory process loss and wastage should be stopped through regular monitoring. Farmers should be given incentives for producing high quality sugarcane. Initiatives can be taken to give mill dividend if necessary.

Loans must be waived. Recommendations should be implemented to address the crisis in sugarcane cultivation, sugar production, and management.

Organic fertilizer production unit should be set up in every factory. Additional electricity should be supplied to the national grid by producing electricity through co-generation.

Apart from the threshing season, various agriculture-based industries can be set up on the factory land so that the factory land, infrastructure and labour force can be used to the maximum throughout the year; for example, setting up processing plants for mango, pineapple, tomato, potato etc., setting up edible oil refineries, spice production plants etc. Since beet can be cultivated twice a year, diffusion units can be set up for beet cultivation and beet juice extraction as a companion crop to sugarcane. As a result, the sugar mill will not remain idle even after the sugarcane crushing season and the cost of sugar production will come down.

By setting up a refinery on the sugar mill’s own land and producing refined sugar throughout the year, the losses of the sugar mills will be reduced on the one hand, and the government’s control over the sugar market will increase on the other hand. Adequate incentives should be given to dealers to expand distribution of sugar.

The problem in selling sugar produced in government mills that dealers feel encouraged to sell privately produced sugar have to be solved. Changes should be made in the supply, distribution and marketing system of sugar.

(The writer is journalist.)