Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company: Creating a policy to develop raw material areas

Policy to support sugarcane growers

Remember 4 years ago, due to the influence of many factors, the price of raw sugarcane dropped, causing many difficulties for sugarcane growers. Faced with this situation, many households switched to growing other crops such as cassava, acacia, corn, etc. This caused the raw material area of ​​Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company to decrease, affecting the production and business activities of the enterprise.

However, in recent years, the price of raw sugarcane has continuously increased and sugar factories have had many good policies, helping thousands of farming households make a profit and invest in sugarcane cultivation. For example, in the 2023-2024 crushing season, the price of raw sugarcane purchased by factories was more than 1 million VND/ton, earning an average profit of 40-50 million VND/ha, bringing high profits to sugarcane growers.

In the 2024 - 2025 crushing season, Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company will purchase sugarcane from farmers at the field price: VND 1,120,000/ton for fresh sugarcane with a sugar content of 10.0 CCS or higher; VND 1,080,000/ton for fresh sugarcane with a sugar content of 9.0 CCS to less than 10.0 CCS; VND 1,045,000/ton for fresh sugarcane with a sugar content of less than 9.0 CCS.

Mr. Nguyen Ba Quy - Deputy Director of Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company shared: In recent years, the company has had many investment policies to support farmers in developing sustainable raw material areas. Typically, in the 2024-2025 crop year, for newly planted sugarcane areas, the company has supported people by providing loans for services: underground plowing, compacting soil with 7-pan plows, compacting soil with milling machines, planting sugarcane with machines combined with fertilization (including all service workers), investing in new sugarcane varieties.

During the sugarcane care period, the company supports the following loan services: Sugarcane care by machine (2-pillar underground plowing with a depth greater than 25cm, combined with fertilizing and loosening the soil between rows); Weeding between rows and loosening the soil for sugarcane; Spraying herbicides by machine (excluding chemicals); Cleaning grass by spraying chemicals (including chemicals); Spraying pesticides for aphids by plane (including chemicals) and spraying services to increase sugar content (including chemicals).

In addition, Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company also rewards processed sugarcane sawdust, with a maximum reward of 30 tons/ha of newly planted sugarcane, under the condition that sugarcane growers sell all sugarcane output to the company. Rewards sugarcane trucks with less debris, with a rate of 20% of sugarcane output imported to the company on the day with the least debris.

Accordingly, when the sugarcane cart enters the crane, the inspector and the duty officer will evaluate the percentage of waste and score the waste of that sugarcane cart. At the end of the working day, the software will base on the score of each sugarcane cart to select the 20% of sugarcane imported to the factory with the least waste and calculate the bonus for each sugarcane cart.

Bonus conditions: sugarcane output does not use sugarcane pickers to collect and load loose sugarcane onto the truck (loose sugarcane is sugarcane that is not bundled and piled up), the sugarcane truck has few leaves (including dry leaves), sugarcane trucks with impurities of 3.0% or less will receive an average bonus of 100,000 VND/ton.

To encourage households to harvest sugarcane early, the company supports early harvest of 30,000 VND/ton. Applicable to sugarcane trucks weighed from November 26 to December 4, 2024 (sugarcane trucks with more than 5% impurities are not supported).

Thanks to policies to support sugarcane growers, the company's raw material area is increasing. In the 2023-2024 sugarcane crop, the raw material area of ​​Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company with a total sugarcane area of ​​6,150 hectares, an increase of nearly 1,000 hectares compared to the previous crop, the sugarcane output brought to the factory is 375,000 tons.

In the 2024-2025 crop year, the company's raw material area will expand to 6,500 hectares, with sugarcane output delivered to the factory reaching 380,000 tons. The sugarcane yield this crop year is expected to reach an average of 60 tons/ha (last year it was 57 tons/ha). In particular, there are plots in Tan Long, Giai Xuan, Nghia Dong communes... that are planted in concentrated areas, cared for according to technical processes, achieving a yield of 120-140 tons/ha.

It can be affirmed that the company's sugarcane raw material area is always stable, thanks to the great contribution of sugarcane growers in Tan Ky, Anh Son, Con Cuong, Yen Thanh, Do Luong districts... and the support of local authorities at all levels.

Sugarcane purchase on schedule

To proactively have raw materials for the next pressing season, Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company has implemented many synchronous investment solutions to develop raw material areas in a sustainable manner. In particular, the company focuses on investing in many concentrated sugarcane fields in localities for people to cooperate in production. In addition, applying mechanization in land preparation, care, pest control for sugarcane, searching and selecting new sugarcane varieties to increase productivity and quality of sugarcane in the following years.

“The company’s orientation is to focus on promoting the application of scientific and technological advances in production for well-developed sugarcane areas. At the same time, select new sugarcane varieties with high productivity, high quality, and good resistance to pests and diseases to put into production with the goal of increasing productivity. Thereby contributing to improving production efficiency per unit of land area for farmers, as well as ensuring stable development of raw material areas for the factory,” said Mr. Nguyen Ba Quy - Deputy Director of Sugarcane Joint Stock Company.

To ensure the raw material area and attract people to grow sugarcane to meet the planned targets in the new sugarcane growing season, localities and Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company coordinate to promote propaganda and mobilize people to convert ineffective crop areas to grow sugarcane, participate in the concentrated sugarcane growing model to receive support from the Company with seeds, techniques, and product purchases.

Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company has also fully prepared the conditions to carry out the sugarcane purchasing work for the 2024-2025 crop year quickly and promptly. The factory will go into production from the end of November 2024, and is expected to finish the pressing season at the end of April 2025, with a pressing capacity of 3,300 tons of sugarcane per day, meeting the purchase of all sugarcane output from farmers.

Accordingly, the company's sugarcane purchasing is implemented according to the criteria of early-ripening sugarcane varieties, with efforts to harvest sugarcane at the right maturity, without reducing yield and sugar content, ensuring harmonious benefits for sugarcane growers./.