In the 2024-2025 crop year, sugarcane area, yield and price in Nghe An will all increase.
This year, both the factory and sugarcane growers are happy to enter the harvest season. There are 3 things that are big: good area, good yield and good purchase price.
Sugarcane has a good harvest and good price.
For farmers, there is nothing more joyful than a good harvest and good prices, which will create a strong motivation for farmers to invest heavily in production with the hope of bringing in high income. Therefore, in the 2023-2024 crushing season, the whole province planted nearly 21,000 hectares of sugarcane, an increase of nearly 1,000 hectares compared to the 2022-2023 season, with a sugarcane yield of approximately 68 tons/ha, nearly 2 tons/ha higher than the previous year's crushing season. What is special is that sugar factories do not reduce the sugarcane purchase price from farmers because of the good sugarcane harvest, the sugarcane purchase price remains stable at the same level as the previous crushing season, from 1.1 to 1.2 million VND/ton of sugarcane.
In the 2024-2025 crushing season, farmers in districts belonging to the sugarcane raw material areas of Song Con, Song Lam sugar processing factories, and Nghe An Sugarcane Company (NASU) harvested sugarcane with excitement.
People in Nghia Dong commune, Tan Ky district are happy that this year's sugarcane crop is good, and the sugar factory buys it at the same price as last year (1,100 VND/kg). At that price, if the yield is high, sugarcane is the most effective crop in Tan Ky at present.
Mr. Phan Van Thanh - Vice Chairman of Nghia Dong Commune People's Committee said: Sugarcane is the main crop of the commune, this sugarcane crop the whole commune planted nearly 200 hectares. Right from the beginning of the crop, farmers directly signed contracts with Song Con Sugar Factory on production and consumption of products for farmers in the field at agreed prices at the time of purchase. According to Mr. Thanh, this year's sugarcane crop is likely to achieve an average yield of over 70 tons/ha, some households like Mr. Van's family, Mrs. Ngoan... can achieve a sugarcane yield of 100 tons/ha or more. In the past three years, sugarcane has really brought great economic efficiency to farmers.
According to the report of the Tan Ky Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, this year's sugarcane crop was planted in nearly 5,000 hectares in the district, with an average sugarcane yield of over 60 tons/ha. Many communes such as Giai Xuan, Tan Long, Nghia Dong, etc. can achieve a sugarcane yield of over 100 tons/ha. The main reason for this year's high sugarcane yield is that farmers have invested more in intensive cultivation, the weather is more favorable, droughts and storms have not occurred seriously, and especially the sugarcane purchase price of the factory remains stable at a high level of over 1 million VND/ton of sugarcane or more.
In Quy Hop district, where Nghe An Sugarcane Company (NASU) is located, the sugarcane harvest season has begun since December 6, 2024. This year's sugarcane crop, the raw sugarcane area of NASU Company has a sugarcane planting area of 14,400 hectares. Of this, Quy Hop district has planted 6,426 hectares, Nghia Dan has planted 5,478 hectares. The average sugarcane yield of the whole raw sugarcane area (14,000 hectares) is expected to reach an average of 61.62 tons/ha.
Mr. Ngo Van Tu - Director of NASU Sugarcane Company said that the factory has started purchasing raw sugarcane and entered the crushing season from December 6, 2024. This year's crushing season, the company still ensures to purchase 100% of sugarcane from farmers in the field at the beginning of the season at 1.12 million VND/ton, mid-season at 1.20 million VND/ton and end of the season at 1.22 million VND/ton.
NASU Sugar Company is a unit that cares a lot about the rights and interests of sugarcane growers. This is clearly shown in supporting sugarcane growers who need to borrow money from the company without interest, providing technical support throughout the season from planting to harvesting, supporting funding and machinery for building roads within sugarcane growing areas, supporting the reduction of impurities in sugarcane harvested by machine and increasing the purchase price of sugarcane with a sugar content greater than 0.5 ccs compared to the average sugar content in 5 days, each ccs is 60,000 VND.
According to the Department of Cultivation and Plant Protection of Nghe An, this year's sugarcane crop the whole province planted 22,206 hectares of raw sugarcane, with an expected average yield of 61.63 tons/ha, and an output of about 1,172,603 tons.
Compared to the 2023 sugarcane crop, the yield is not higher, but the area has increased by more than 1,200 hectares. This is the fourth consecutive year that the purchase price in Nghe An has always been stable at a fairly high level. With the current sugarcane purchase price, sugarcane growers have a profit of 35 - 40 million VND/ha. At the same time, this is also the fourth year that the area and yield have continuously increased at different levels. From here, the lesson learned is that in addition to implementing good intensive farming measures in terms of varieties and fertilizers, along with favorable weather conditions... the policy mechanism, especially the purchase price of raw sugarcane, has created motivation for farmers to feel secure and excited about production.
Considerations when expanding the area
In the current free market mechanism, the increase and decrease of the price of any product is normal. Therefore, what to grow in the current market mechanism must be based on supply and demand linked to product quality. The lesson of rescuing vegetable, root and fruit products for farmers specializing in vegetable growing in Quynh Luu, Dien Chau, Nghi Loc shallots, Ky Son ginger... are examples that still have value. Any product when supply exceeds demand, the product will be in surplus, leading to difficulty in consumption even if the selling price is reduced to a low level. At this time, production facilities and farmers must ask for help to avoid heavy losses.
Sugarcane alone cannot be subject to the rescue call policy like other crops, but must endure forced selling at low prices, dumping, and selling quickly to both free up land for the next crop or to grow other crops; and not letting old sugarcane flower, which seriously reduces the quality of sugar and molasses in the sugarcane. If sugarcane flowers, it will be very difficult to sell, and even no one will buy it. Therefore, production facilities and farmers should not chase after high purchasing prices and compete to expand the area of sugarcane or any other crop.
The best solution is to focus on intensive farming to achieve the highest productivity and output instead of expanding the area. This solution not only brings high economic efficiency but also saves arable land for growing other crops.
Sugarcane productivity in Nghe An is currently at an average level of less than 70 tons/ha, which is still low. Currently, many production facilities and households in the districts of Tan Ky, Quy Hop, Anh Son, Thanh Chuong... have achieved sugarcane productivity of 120 - 140 tons/ha. That proves that the potential for exploiting sugarcane productivity in Nghe An is still very large, if we have good intensive farming measures. If the actual demand for raw sugarcane of a sugar processing factory is still there, and the supply does not meet the demand, the planting area can be expanded. However, in this case, there must be an economic contract between the sugarcane grower and the factory regarding the consumption of the product.
Nghe An has 3 sugar processing factories with a capacity of 15,500 tons/day. However, during the entire period from 2013 to 2020, only in the 2016-2017 crop year, 24,019 hectares of sugarcane were planted, with an average yield of 56.1 tons/ha. The following years gradually decreased because the sugarcane purchase price of the factories only fluctuated at 780 - 800 VND/kg of sugarcane, the price was too low, farmers had little profit, so the sugarcane area in the 2019-2020 crop year was only 19,825 hectares. Then in the 2020-2021 crop year, the sugarcane area decreased to nearly 18,500 hectares, with an average yield of 60 tons/ha. The purchase price increased to an average of 950 VND/kg, farmers were excited to invest in better care. Entering the 2021-2022 crop year, the sugarcane area increased to 19,223 hectares, with an average yield of 61 tons/ha and an output of 1,173,000 tons. Next, in the 2022-2023 crop year, the sugarcane area increased to 20,200 hectares, with a yield of approximately 66 tons/ha, with the factory purchasing at a price of 1,100 VND/kg of sugarcane, the highest in many years.
