2014 - 2015 crushing season: Factory lacks raw sugarcane

(Baonghean) - The 2014-2015 sugarcane pressing season is considered a difficult one, the price of sugarcane continuously decreases, leading to low sugarcane prices, making people reluctant to invest. The sugarcane raw material areas have decreased productivity and area, leading to a shortage of raw materials.

In preparation for this year's pressing season, Song Con Sugarcane Joint Stock Company (Tan Ky) has invested over 20 billion VND in repairing and maintaining machinery, installing new equipment such as adding boilers, installing new centrifuges, upgrading boilers, and handling environmental sanitation; investing billions of VND in maintaining and repairing over 20 km of raw material roads in the communes of Giai Xuan, Tan Huong, and Nghia Dung... In the 2014-2015 pressing season, the company bought sugarcane from farmers at 800,000 VND/ton; in the first 10 days of the pressing season, the company supported 10,000 VND/ton of sugarcane. Currently, the company has stabilized the area of ​​8,100 hectares of raw sugarcane. To increase sugarcane output, right after the end of the 2013 - 2014 crushing season, the Company proactively selected good varieties for mass production, the main sugarcane varieties being Roc10, Roc 22, Vien Lam 6... However, this year the yield was low, only reaching 56 tons/ha, down 2 quintals/ha. This year's output only reached 430,000 tons of sugarcane/year, down 40,000 tons of sugarcane compared to the previous season.

Harvesting raw sugarcane in Tan Ky district.

Mr. Nguyen Duy Ket - Chairman of Giai Xuan Commune People's Committee (Tan Ky) said: The commune has the largest sugarcane area in the district, with 1,150 hectares. In the 2013 - 2014 crop, the sugarcane yield reached 62 tons/ha, now it is only 57 tons/ha. The main reason for the low sugarcane yield is because the sugarcane price is cheap, so many people are reluctant to invest. Last crop, the price was 900,000 VND/ton of sugarcane, this crop, the price of grade 1 sugarcane is only 800,000 VND/ton, grade 2 is 770,000 VND/ton, which is too cheap, while the price of materials and sugarcane care is expensive. Investing in 1 hectare of sugarcane is about 40 million VND including seeds, fertilizers, plowing, care... Not to mention the difficult transportation of raw materials, people have to spend more money on transporting sugarcane to the main road.

While Song Con Sugarcane Company is facing difficulties due to low sugarcane productivity and sugarcane output shortage but still maintains the raw material area, Song Lam Sugarcane Joint Stock Company is facing the challenge of decreasing area because people are switching to other crops. In Anh Son, localities have reduced sugarcane area quite a lot: Thanh Son from 88 ha to 41.5 ha, Binh Son from 281 ha to 223 ha, Cam Son from 8.4 ha to 4.7 ha... For the two communes of Chau Khe and Thach Ngan (Con Cuong), there were 340 ha now reduced to 320 ha.

Mr. Hoang Van Hung - Deputy Director of the company said: The factory has never had a shortage of raw sugarcane like this crop. If in the 2012 - 2013 crop, the factory had a stable area of ​​1,810 hectares of sugarcane, purchasing 100,000 tons of sugarcane, this year the raw material area only reached more than 1,400 hectares, equivalent to 65,000 tons of sugarcane (a decrease of more than 400 hectares of sugarcane compared to the previous crop). According to calculations, if in previous years the factory operated for 4.5 - 5 months/year, this year's crushing season only had 2.5 - 3 months of production.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Men in Hamlet 4, Hoa Son Commune (Anh Son) said: In 2013, my family planted 17 sao of sugarcane. Due to low sugarcane prices, this year the family destroyed 10 sao of sugarcane and converted to growing corn and beans for higher economic value. 1 sao of sugarcane only earns over 2 million VND/year, while the same area if grown 3 crops (2 crops of corn and 1 crop of beans) earns 3.9 million VND/sao, and has income spread evenly throughout the year. It is known that Hamlet 4 has 167 households. In 2013, there were still over 36 hectares of sugarcane, but now there are only 17 hectares of sugarcane. At this time, Hamlet 4 is renovating the land to grow 4 hectares of chili. Hoa Son Commune has long been stable on 154 hectares of sugarcane, but now there are only about 100 hectares of sugarcane. Most of the area using the old sugarcane variety (ROC 10) for 10 years now has low productivity, so people have switched to growing other crops. Currently, the commune still has a lot of land (about 60 hectares), in addition to 20 hectares planned for growing tea, the rest is according to people's wishes to grow other crops.

In addition to the reasons of low productivity and income from sugarcane compared to other crops, according to the people's reflection, the Sugar Factory has not really coordinated with sugarcane growers, the sugarcane purchasing policy is not clear, and the price is unstable. Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuong in Hamlet 3, Khai Son Commune - Anh Son complained: "The supply of high-quality sugarcane varieties is still limited. That's why my family has 5 sao of land but only dares to grow 3 sao of sugarcane, the remaining 2 sao are used to grow corn, beans, watermelons...".

The factory lacks raw sugarcane, which means workers have reduced income or even no jobs. At Song Lam Sugarcane Joint Stock Company, in 2013 the average worker salary was 3.5 million VND/person/month. This year is expected to be even more difficult. Therefore, entering the 2014-2015 crushing season, Song Lam Sugarcane Company committed to purchasing sugarcane at the field. Since November 2014, the company has not charged interest to households that borrowed seeds and fertilizers in advance, but has also supported each hectare with 3 tons of lime to invest in sugarcane.

The province currently has 3 sugar factories with sugarcane raw material areas of over 26,000 hectares, the average sugarcane yield is estimated at 54 - 55 tons/ha, down 1 - 1.5 tons/ha compared to the previous crop. Mr. Truong Minh Chau - Head of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development's Crop Production Department added: "The reason for the decrease in productivity is due to the prevalence of grass shoot disease, this crop alone has about 8,000 hectares infected with grass shoot disease. Not to mention some areas due to drought and lack of water, while there are no irrigation works for sugarcane. The low sugarcane yield is also due to the fact that the sugarcane area in the province is using old sugarcane varieties." According to Mr. Chau, to increase sugarcane output to meet the pressing needs of the following years, sugar factories need to pay more attention to the raw material areas. Proactively arrange funding to support the introduction and propagation of new varieties; guide sugarcane growers to increase the application of technical measures in production, intensive farming to increase productivity so that sugarcane has "enough strength" to compete with other crops even when sugar prices are low.

Low commercial sugarcane prices, combined with unfavorable production conditions, pests, drought, etc., are having a significant impact on the psychology of sugarcane growers. This explains why many households have switched from sugarcane to other crops, leading to a decrease in raw material sources. The core issue now is that sugar factories need to consider adjusting purchasing prices and have reasonable policies so that people can increase their income per unit area of ​​sugarcane, only then can they hope to stabilize the raw material area.

Article and photos:Van Truong