The 2026-27 sugarcane crushing season has begun in Uttar Pradesh, India's largest sugar-producing state, but the state government has not yet announced the State Advisory Price (SAP) that mills must pay farmers for their cane. Over the same year, the retail price of sugar has risen by around 35 per cent, to Rs 62-65 a kilogram.
Farmers had hoped dearer sugar would mean a better cane price. Praveen Kumar, a farmer from Tejalhera village in Muzaffarnagar district, said October rain had already damaged the crop, and that without a declared price, traditional jaggery units and crushers had pushed their buying rate down to Rs 350 a quintal. Farmers had expected the price to rise from Rs 400 to at least Rs 450 a quintal. Many sold to crushers below Rs 400 before the mills opened, to meet festival costs and clear their fields for wheat.
Jaggery makers say they cannot pay more for now. KP Singh, owner of Hans Heritage Jaggery in Jhinjhana, Shamli district, said the October rain encouraged leafy growth rather than sugar content, so recovery is low and good jaggery is at least 15 days away; units are buying cane at Rs 350-380 a quintal. Yashpal Malik of Freyr Foods in Muzaffarnagar said wholesale jaggery, at Rs 4,500-5,000 a quintal, is cheaper than wholesale sugar at Rs 5,900-6,100, the reverse of last year. Ex-mill sugar has risen from about Rs 4,200 a quintal last year to Rs 5,300-5,500.
Unlike Maharashtra and Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh has seen no large protest over cane prices this year, even with Assembly elections a few months away. Rural Voice attributes this to divided farmers' unions and to the alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal, which is strong in western Uttar Pradesh. The Bharatiya Kisan Union wants Rs 550 a quintal and other groups ask up to Rs 600; the paper expects a rise of around Rs 20-30.
For 2025-26 the state raised the SAP by Rs 30, to Rs 400 a quintal for early-maturing varieties, Rs 390 for general varieties and Rs 355 for rejected varieties. Over Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's nine years the price has risen by Rs 85 a quintal in all, against Rs 65 over Akhilesh Yadav's five years and Rs 120 under Mayawati from 2007 to 2012.
Cane area in the state has fallen for this season from 28.61 lakh hectares to 28.14 lakh hectares, about 47,000 hectares less. Farmers blame higher cultivation, labour and irrigation costs and late payments by mills. The central government's Fair and Remunerative Price for 2026-27 is Rs 365 a quintal at a basic recovery of 10.25 per cent, with Rs 3.56 more for each 0.1 point above it, but Uttar Pradesh growers are paid the state price, which is usually higher.
Reported by Ajeet Singh for Rural Voice.
Source: Rural Voice
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