The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) has demanded a legally guaranteed minimum price of Rs 575 per quintal for sugarcane, and never less than Rs 550, together with a minimum support price (MSP) of C2+50% for every kharif and rabi crop, Rural Voice reports. The farmers' organisation set out its case in a press release responding to the Centre's new committee on cane prices.
AIKS welcomed the committee, chaired by former NITI Aayog member Prof. Ramesh Chand, but said it was won by a month-long agitation of cane growers in southern Maharashtra and northern Karnataka rather than granted by the government. It objected to Chand's appointment, calling him a prominent supporter of the three farm laws repealed in 2021, said the other three members are bureaucrats with no farmers' bodies or cane-growing states represented, and warned that tying farmers' prices to mills' finances in the terms of reference could hand mill owners too much say. It wants the report published within 30 days and applied in the current crushing season.
The organisation disputes the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) view that the 2026-27 Fair and Remunerative Price of Rs 365 per quintal gives growers a 100.5% margin. That figure, it says, is measured against the A2+FL cost of Rs 182 a quintal; against the C2 cost of Rs 258 that the CACP also cites, the margin is 41.5%. Correcting what it lists as ten methodological errors in its analysis, The Sugarcane Price, Decoded, including a 2011-12 index and average yields that hide red rot losses, AIKS puts the C2 cost at about Rs 308. It also wants growers paid at least Rs 57 a quintal more as their share of mills' ethanol and electricity revenue.
On sugar, AIKS says the minimum selling price has stayed at Rs 31 a kg since 2019 and is cited as the reason mills cannot pay farmers, while soft drink and confectionery makers, which it says buy 60-65% of India's sugar, gain an implicit subsidy of about Rs 15,000 crore a year. It wants the price raised to at least Rs 50 a kg and a dual-pricing system in which bulk corporate buyers pay more, with the difference passed to cane growers.
AIKS extended its criticism to MSPs in general, alleging that the CACP's own C2 estimates point to Rs 2,774 a quintal for wheat in the 2027-28 rabi season against the announced Rs 2,610, and Rs 7,426 for gram against Rs 5,958. It said no kharif crop received a margin of even 24% over C2 cost despite four diesel price rises. It also alleged that states understate costs: Uttar Pradesh, it said, assumed a cane yield of 800 quintals a hectare against an actual 563, and several states submitted low paddy cost estimates or none for wheat.
AIKS said it has sought a meeting with the committee and will step up its campaign at sugar mills, mandis and villages with the Samyukt Kisan Morcha if the panel is used to delay action. The figures and allegations are the organisation's own.
Photo: Dinesh Valke / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Rural Voice
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