Good harvest, sugarcane growers are not happy

(Baonghean) -Compared to many previous years, the 2012-2013 sugarcane pressing season was assessed to have a high standing sugarcane area, good yield and quality. However, the sugarcane purchasing price decreased, leading to low production efficiency...

At this time, in the Binh Son sugarcane raw material area of ​​Anh Son district, many areas have been harvested. Mr. Nguyen Duc Hoa - Hamlet 11 Binh Son, currently has over 1 hectare of sugarcane raw material and is also a large sugarcane grower in the commune, said: "This crop is more favorable than last year because the sugarcane is not affected by drought and flooding, and aphids are not damaged. Sugarcane grows quickly and well, with a yield about 5 tons/ha higher than last year, with an estimated total output of nearly 100 tons of sugarcane. Currently, I have harvested nearly 1/3 of the area with over 40 tons of output. The sugarcane price is purchased by the factory according to sugar reserves, good sugarcane is priced at 910 thousand/ton, roughly calculated, my family can earn a profit of nearly 70 million VND".

Binh Son is a key sugarcane growing area of ​​Anh Son district. According to Mr. Ho Van Than - Vice Chairman of Binh Son Commune People's Committee, people here know how to utilize agricultural by-products as organic fertilizers to grow sugarcane. Last year, the commune completed the conversion of land fund to grow sugarcane. Many households also hired machines to dig up all the acacia trees on the hills, destroy cassava plants, and reclaim the slopes to grow sugarcane to sell to Song Lam Sugar Factory. Thanks to that, this sugarcane crop, the commune's sugarcane area reached the highest ever at 347 hectares, an increase of 15 hectares compared to last year.

Harvesting sugarcane in Binh Son raw material area (Anh Son)

Up to this point, Song Lam Sugar Factory has been in the crushing season for more than 1 month. Mr. Ha Huy Dung - Deputy Head of Agricultural Affairs Department of Song Lam Sugar Factory, said: Compared to previous years, this crushing season, the factory has implemented sugarcane purchase 4 days earlier than planned. This is also the first year that the factory has switched from the mechanism of bulk and mass purchasing at the field to purchasing according to sugar storage at the factory. The sugarcane areas that are purchased early are mostly areas where sugarcane is uprooted and replanted, or cut down for seeds, and sugarcane that ensures sugar storage quality such as Thanh - Binh - Tho, Bai Phu, Hoa Son, October Tea Enterprise, Thach Ngan, Chi Khe, Chau Khe (Con Cuong) areas. This season, the sugarcane area in the whole region increased by 200 hectares compared to last year, with an estimated output of 90 thousand tons/80 thousand tons planned. To improve the efficiency of the pressing season, the factory focused on investing nearly 30 billion VND to complete the line of pressing machines, sugar cookers, boilers, and turbines, increasing the sugarcane pressing capacity from 6,000 tons to 8,000 tons/day.

In the raw sugarcane area of ​​Song Con - Tan Ky, the harvest atmosphere for the pressing season is also very urgent. At this time, over 600/6000 hectares of raw sugarcane in the sugarcane areas of Tan Xuan, Giai Xuan, Nghia Dong, Dong Van, Tan Hop have been purchased by the factory. The purchased sugarcane output is estimated at over 4000 tons. Mr. Nguyen Sy Cong - Head of Agricultural Affairs Department of Song Con Sugar Factory said: Compared to the previous crop, this pressing season, the factory's raw sugarcane area increased by 13%, the sugarcane output reached about 350 thousand tons, an increase of 5-10%. To ensure effective business and consume all sugarcane for the people, the company has invested tens of billions of VND to install new production lines, increase the pressing capacity to 3 thousand tons/day, and invest nearly 1 billion VND to repair raw sugarcane roads to facilitate sugarcane harvesting. In addition, the company prioritizes buying sugarcane with high sugar content at a price of 910 thousand VND/ton in the field.

The sugarcane area increased, the output was large but the price of sugarcane was low, which is the biggest difficulty for sugarcane growers this year. According to the analysis of Mr. Nguyen Duc Hoa, hamlet 11 Binh Son (Anh Son), the price of sugarcane this year is lower than every year (in the 2011-2012 crop year, the average price of sugarcane was 950,000 VND/ton). This year, the price of 910,000 VND/ton is only for good sugarcane, early ripening, high sugar content, the remaining sugarcane area is closer to the final harvest period (March DL onwards), the porosity in the sugarcane is large, the sugarcane is old, the flowers are old, the branches grow, so the sugar content decreases, the price will be low. Meanwhile, investing in 1 hectare of sugarcane requires 1 ton of NPK, 2 quintals of nitrogen, manure, bio-fertilizer and seeds, nearly 5 million VND/ha, 1.3 times higher than before.

Discussing the above difficulties, Mr. Ha Huy Dung - Deputy Head of Agricultural Affairs Department of Song Lam Sugar Company confided: This year, the price of sugar on the market has decreased by 10-15% compared to previous years, specifically the price has decreased from 17-18 thousand VND/kg to 14.5 thousand VND/kg. This is a difficulty for production and business. From the time of entering the crushing season (November 17) until now, to reduce difficulties for people, the factory has had a mechanism to support cutting sugarcane according to the sugar level at the beginning of the season for households harvesting sugarcane before December 30, investing in lending to people with a mechanism of no interest and only calculated at 90% of the bank interest rate for households borrowing money for plowing and seeds for intensive farming. In particular, according to a report from the Agricultural Affairs Department of Song Con Sugarcane Factory, sugarcane areas with over 20% grass shoots must be cleared and replanted. The factory supports each household with 2 tons of 515 fertilizer/ha and 5 quintals of lime, and supports planting sugarcane in batches of 10 hectares or more at a rate of 4 million VND/ha.

To reduce difficulties and create favorable conditions for sugarcane growers, in addition to introducing new sugarcane varieties into production and investing in intensive sugarcane farming loans, factories need to develop a specific coordination schedule with units, communes, and each hamlet and household to have a reasonable purchasing plan. In particular, pay attention to investing in repairing raw material roads to facilitate the production and transportation of sugarcane in the coming time.

Luong Mai