Goa: Sugarcane crop dries up, farmers face loss of Rs 60 lakh

Suraj P Kaisuvker | TNN | Updated: May 2, 2020, 12:45 IST

The lockdown has dealt a blow to sugarcane cultivators in Goa

PONDA: The lockdown has dealt a blow to sugarcane cultivators in the state, with their unharvested crop drying up in the fields due to a shortage of farm labour .
Harshad Prabhudesai, vice-president of the Goa Sugarcane Farmers’ Association has estimated that around 2,000 tonne of sugarcane has dried up since the lockdown began.In his village of Wadem-Sanguem alone, at least 1,200 tonne of the crop has been lost. Sanguem taluka is the highest sugarcane producer in the state, and has contributed over 12,393 tonne canes to the Sanjivani Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana this season, until February 28.

Cooperation Minister Govind Gaude has however claimed the state has left 1,600 tonne canes unharvested. He added that the government was considering paying compensation to the farmners who lost their crop. The factory pays Rs 1,200 per tonne and the agriculture department pays a support price of Rs 1,800, totaling a price of Rs 3,000 per tonne for the canes supplied by the farmers to the factory.
“Considering the urgent need for the payments to the farmers, we have decided to pay them at least 80 percent. The payments would be done most probably by next week ”, Gaude said. The farmers engage several teams of labourers from neighbouring states to harvest the canes, however as the harvesting started late this year, most of the labourers had left by the first week of March.
“Once the temperature rises, labourers cannot work in farms as the dried leaves of the canes could injure them. But the labourers who had stayed back in Goa and were harvesting the crop also had to stop due to the lockdown”, Prabhudesai said.