"Problem" of raw materials for sugarcane processing: "Solution" in productivity and cost

(Baonghean) - According to information from sugarcane processing enterprises in the province, this year's crushing season, all factories failed to meet the set plan due to lack of raw materials. As for farmers, due to low productivity and efficiency of sugarcane cultivation, they are no longer interested in planting and caring for it... In any case, sugarcane processing enterprises are having a headache with the "problem" of raw materials.

Farmers abandon sugarcane?

Nghe An currently has a sugarcane raw material area of ​​nearly 30 thousand hectares, with an annual output of about 1.8 million tons, with 3 sugarcane factories located there: Nasu Sugar Factory (Nghe An Sugarcane Company Limited) with a raw material area of ​​18,800 hectares, Song Con Sugar Factory with 8,200 hectares and Song Lam Sugar Factory with 1,800 hectares. In the 2014 - 2015 crushing season, the area, productivity and sugarcane output of all 3 factories decreased compared to the plan. At Nasu Sugar Factory, the sugarcane area decreased by 3,000 hectares, sugarcane yield decreased by 2 - 3 tons/ha compared to the 2013 - 2014 crushing season, resulting in a decrease in sugarcane output of over 200,000 tons.

Purchasing sugarcane at Song Con Sugar Factory. Photo: Cong Sang

The biggest decrease is at Song Lam Sugar Factory. It can be said that the factory has never had such difficulty with raw materials as it does now. The area of ​​standing sugarcane has decreased, from 1,810 hectares in 2013 - 2014, to 1,471 hectares now. There was a time in the middle of the 2014 - 2015 crushing season when Song Lam Sugar Factory stopped production; according to Mr. Hoang Van Hung - Deputy Director of the company, the lack of raw materials was partly due to the lack of means of transportation. In the previous season, there were 43 trucks with a capacity of 10 - 15 tons, but now there are only 20 trucks because the trucks are at the end of their "expiry" cycle. Meanwhile, some large trucks cannot enter the raw material area because of poor traffic... However, the raw material area of ​​the factory has decreased significantly. In some places, the sugarcane area has decreased by half because farmers have stopped growing sugarcane because the factory's purchase price is low, less than 800,000 VND/ton purchased at the field. For example, in Thanh Son commune, the sugarcane area has decreased from 110 hectares to only 41 hectares.

Anh Son is a midland mountainous area suitable for sugarcane growth and in fact, the district has formed 3 main crops creating a tripod including tea, sugarcane and rubber. On August 25, 2014, the Provincial People's Committee issued an official dispatch on the policy of increasing the capacity of Song Lam Sugar Factory from 1,000 tons of sugarcane/day to 1,500 tons of sugarcane/day starting from the 2014-2015 pressing season and 3,000 tons/day in 2020. Therefore, the standing sugarcane area needed annually for the factory to operate at its full capacity must be from 2,000 to 2,300 hectares with an average sugarcane yield of 65 - 70 tons/ha. In order to build a stable and developing sugarcane area, creating a land fund with crop rotation, Song Lam Sugarcane Joint Stock Company has reviewed and organized implementation.

However, the reality shows that the land fund for sugarcane cultivation is not much, many places people have switched to other crops and more importantly, the current sugarcane yield on Anh Son land is low, only reaching an average of 45 - 50 tons/ha. "There are less than 10 days left until the pressing season ends, but it must be affirmed that it is very difficult. Sugarcane prices and transportation costs have not decreased, while sugar prices have decreased, only 10.6 thousand VND/kg. In 2013 - 2014, the sugarcane output for pressing was 92,000 tons, reaching 92% of capacity, while in 2014 - 2015, the output reached 66,000 tons, reaching 60% of capacity. Not only has the output of finished sugar decreased, but other products such as molasses and alcohol have also decreased sharply. With this situation, next year will be more difficult". - Mr. Hung worried.

In Tan Ky, the sugarcane area did not decrease as sharply as in Anh Son, but the output decreased because the productivity, although higher than the sugarcane material area of ​​Song Lam Sugar Factory, generally did not meet the plan (reaching about 58 tons/ha). The total sugarcane area in the district is 6,699 hectares (the plan is 6,760 hectares). Units with large sugarcane areas and high productivity, including Nghia Dong, Tan Xuan, Giai Xuan, and Song Con Agricultural One Member Co., Ltd., now also have a tendency to decrease productivity, in some places by 5 tons/ha (from 62 tons/ha in 2013, down to 57 tons/ha in 2014). As for the units with large sugarcane areas in the hills, including Huong Son, Tan Huong, Ky Tan, Nghia Dung, An Ngai, sugarcane productivity is low, only from 40 - 45 tons/ha... According to the aggregated data, if in 2005, the average sugarcane productivity of the whole province reached 60 tons/ha, then in 2008 it was 58 tons/ha, in 2012 it was only 55 tons/ha and in the 2014 - 2015 crushing season, the average sugarcane productivity is expected not to exceed the threshold of 52 tons/ha.

With such sugarcane productivity, when sold to sugar factories at the highest price of 800,000 VND/ton of sugarcane, 1 hectare earns over 41 million VND/year, while the total cost to produce 1 hectare of sugarcane is at least 30 million VND. Thus, after deducting costs, sugarcane growers only earn around 11 million VND/ha/year, which is lower than many other crops. Low sugarcane productivity means sugarcane growers have no profit, and for sugar processing factories, low sugarcane production efficiency also brings many difficulties, and is forecast to face great pressure from the ASEAN region when by 2018, sugar import and export within ASEAN will be completely abolished. Therefore, not only the 2014-2015 pressing season, but also in the future, the sugarcane industry is facing challenges; more than ever, businesses, farmers and relevant agencies need to get involved in calculating to come up with feasible solutions for raw sugarcane.

Packing product diameter

Effective models

In fact, although farmers think that the sugarcane purchase price of factories is low, compared to other countries in the region, the sugarcane price in our country is not low but even higher. For example, the sugarcane purchase price at sugar factories in Laos and Thailand is 15-20% lower than ours, but their farmers still make a lot of profit because the cost of producing one ton of sugarcane is only 55-60% of the cost of producing sugarcane in our country; while their sugarcane productivity is also very high, reaching 80-120 tons/ha. So the problem here is that the sugarcane productivity and intensive farming level of our farmers are still too low. So, to solve the problem of raw materials for sugarcane factories, the key issue is to increase the productivity and efficiency of sugarcane.

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Lap, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, over the past years, the province has planned and built specialized areas for each type of crop quite clearly. With raw sugarcane, the province currently has nearly 28,500 hectares, and the province has also planned a high-tech sugarcane area. The concentrated, large-scale raw material areas are mainly located in the districts of Quy Hop, Nghia Dan, Tan Ky, and Anh Son. However, there are still many problems in production, with the phenomenon of chasing after expanding the area without investing in intensive farming.

For the sugarcane industry to stand firm, we must think long-term, have solutions to thoroughly and completely solve the problem of crop productivity and efficiency. In 2014, in Tan Thang commune (Quynh Luu) and Minh Hop (Quy Hop), Nghe An Agricultural Extension - Fisheries Extension Center implemented a project to build a comprehensive intensive production model for sugarcane to serve industrial sugar processing with a scale of 15 hectares. People participating in the model are supported by the State with 100% of seeds, 50% of fertilizers and pesticides, and are fully trained in technical processes. With scientific and technological advances in seeds, full investment in intensive cultivation, sugarcane grows and develops well and limits the disease of sugarcane shoots and grasses, sugarcane yield reaches an average of 99 tons/ha, 36 tons/ha higher than sugarcane grown in mass, earning a net profit of 23.5 million VND/ha.

Sugarcane harvest in Ky Tan commune (Tan Ky).

For the past 3 years, Mr. Duong Dinh Tan in Nghia Xuan commune - Quy Hop has started applying drip irrigation technology to sugarcane. Mr. Tan said: This is a hilly area, previously there was no irrigation water, his family's 2 hectares of sugarcane only yielded 55 - 60 tons/ha at most, even many years of prolonged drought, many areas of sugarcane were completely lost due to withering. Since 2012, when Khang Thinh Irrigation Technology Joint Stock Company, the representative of Netafim Group (Israel) in Vietnam, consulted and transferred drip irrigation technology, his family's sugarcane yield reached nearly 120 tons of sugarcane/ha, twice as high as before. From that efficiency, Mr. Tan has invested more than 520 million VND to buy machines to irrigate an additional 2.4 hectares of sugarcane and 4.4 hectares of oranges, increasing the total irrigation area to 8.8 hectares. Talking about the effectiveness of investment models for irrigation of sugarcane in Quy Hop land, Mr. Hoang Van Thai, Head of the District's Agriculture Department, said: Drip irrigation technology has helped double the average sugarcane yield, from 60 tons to 120 tons of sugarcane/ha, bringing high income to sugarcane growers.

Right in the raw material area of ​​Song Lam Sugarcane Joint Stock Company - a unit that "struggled" due to lack of raw materials in the last pressing season, there are also very effective sugarcane intensive farming models. In the 2013 - 2014 crop year, the company cooperated with the district to build an intensive farming model for 5 hectares of sugarcane in Tho Son (Anh Son), using new varieties 00236, QD94. With comprehensive solutions on varieties and full intensive investment, even without irrigation water, sugarcane yield still reached 70 - 75 tons/ha, while the mass sugarcane yield in the entire raw material area only reached an average of 50 tons/ha.

According to Mr. Ha Huy Dung, Deputy Head of Agricultural Affairs Department, Song Lam Sugarcane Joint Stock Company, in the near future, the unit will build a 5-hectare model in Chau Khe (Con Cuong), with proper intensive investment, especially with irrigation water taken from Lam River by pump, the yield will reach 120 tons/ha. The raw material area in Nghia Hoan and Nghia Thai communes... (Tan Ky) belonging to Song Con Agricultural Company has for the past 5 years converted more than 100 hectares of rice land that is not completely water-controlled, has low and unstable yield to sugarcane cultivation, with yield from 90 to 120 tons/ha, 3 times more efficient than rice cultivation; from there, it has been expanded to 400 hectares with an average yield of over 80 tons/ha. Or in Nghia Dong commune, due to floods and droughts, corn and peanut cultivation is unstable, the district has directed people to switch to sugarcane cultivation, thanks to good soil and sufficient moisture, the yield always reaches an average of over 80 tons/ha.

(To be continued)

Thu Huyen - Phu Huong