Growers, sugar millers meet to help resume crushing.

HYDERABAD -- A meeting between sugar millers and growers was held under the chairmanship of Sindh cane commissioner in his office on Friday and discussed modalities for resuming crushing of sugar cane that has been suspended by 12 sugar factories of lower Sindh region - Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas - abruptly.

Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) Sindh zone chairman Dr Tara Chand also attended the meeting along with other sugar mill owners. Nadeem Shah of the Sindh Abadgar Board and Nabi Bux Sathio of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) represented their organisations at the meeting that continued for around 90 minutes.

According to the PSMA chairman, it was decided in the meeting that every mill would conduct survey in its area while growers' leaders would persuade farmers to continue harvesting crop to be procured by factories.

He said it was a temporary shutdown primarily on account of 'no sugar cane' supply situation in lower Sindh, otherwise mills in the rest of Sindh were functioning.

Answering a question, he told Dawn that sugar mills in Ghotki were not paying Rs200 or over Rs200 because he owned a factory in that district. 'Mills will start crushing wherever growers in their areas show willingness to harvest the crop,' he said.

He said that as harvesting picked up momentum in every crushing season, situation got normalised and that was why growers were urged to encourage their friends to ensure regular supplies of cane. 'We will hold a meeting of the PSMA and you will hear in the next few days that sugar mills start announcing dates for restarting crushing,' he disclosed.

His thrust was that 12 sugar mills suspended the process when farmers declined to supply cane. But growers rejected his contention. According to Nabi Bux Sathio, sugar mills themselves jacked up the rate at Rs240 and then reduced it to Rs192/40kg in one go. He said that to some extent, this step might have disappointed growers.

He said sugar cane production had been on lower side this season and growers were slowly and gradually ensuring supplies because part of crop (vegetation along with stick of sugar cane) was used for livestock's fodder. 'In view of lesser crop production, farmers were cautiously harvesting it so that fodder...