Coimbatore: Sugarcane farmers in western Tamil Nadu have expressed their disappointment with the Central Government’s recently announced support price of ₹355 per quintal for the 2025-26 crushing season, set at a sugar recovery rate of 10.25%. Many also criticized the State Government for not fulfilling its election promise of raising the procurement price to ₹4,000 per tonne, reports The Hindu.
As per the Centre’s policy, there will be no deductions for recovery rates below 9.5%, and a base price of ₹329.05 per quintal will be maintained. However, an official report shows that the average sugar recovery rate in Tamil Nadu stands at just 8.64%, which means farmers in the state will mostly receive lower returns.
To address this, the Tamil Nadu Government has offered a special incentive of ₹349 per tonne this season. Still, many farmers remain concerned. The rising cost of labour and inputs, along with crop damage caused by the yellow sugarcane aphid — a pest that stunts growth and reduces recovery — are adding to their woes.
Jegadeesh, a farmer from Thirumoorthy Nagar, said that plants affected by the aphid are often rendered useless and have to be discarded. He also raised concerns about the lack of transparency in how the government manages by-products like molasses, which he believes deprives farmers of fair benefits.
Some farmers are now shifting away from sugarcane altogether. Gopalakrishnan, a third-generation farmer from Udumalpet, has already moved half of his 10-acre farm to coconut cultivation. “I plan to completely stop growing sugarcane in the coming years. It just isn’t sustainable anymore without a procurement price of at least ₹4,000 per tonne,” he said.
The Centre has pointed out that the new Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) for 2025-26 is 4.41% higher than the previous year. In 2024-25, the FRP for a 9.5% sugar recovery rate was ₹3,151 per tonne. The new price is ₹3,290 per tonne — an increase of just ₹139. But many farmers feel this modest rise does little to offset rising costs.
Easan Murugasamy, founder of the Tamil Nadu Farmers’ Protection Association, warned that this minimal increase would likely result in a steep drop in sugarcane cultivation across the state. He pointed out that Tamil Nadu lags behind other states in procurement prices: ₹4,550 per tonne in Gujarat, ₹4,200 in Chhattisgarh, ₹3,750 in Maharashtra, and ₹3,490 in Bihar.
Once spanning 15 lakh acres, the area under sugarcane cultivation in Tamil Nadu has shrunk to just five lakh acres, reflecting the growing frustration among farmers who feel left behind.
