PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS FOR SUGARCANE GROWERS IN INDIA: AN EMPARICAL STUDY

The Sugarcane cultivation is the most organized sector of farming, which is directly linked to the sugar industry and plays an eminent role in the economic life of India. The Sugarcane growers have a great significance to the agricultural and industrial economy of the rural region of India. It is the feeder for agro based industry like sugar and located in rural areas. The sector has served as an instrument for carrying progressive trends of rural areas. The most outstanding feature of this sector is that it is a link between the factory and the cultivators, whose interest and well being are interdependent. The fundamental problem of the sugarcane grower is that there is no relation between the price of raw material i.e., sugar cane and its finished good i.e., sugar. In almost all the major sugar producing countries of the world the price of cane paid to the farmers depends on the realization from sugar. The basic problem confronting the cane growers is to meet the high cost of cultivation. This problem is aggravated by the unreasonable statutory price paid for the cane by the sugar mills. High cost of cultivation and the low price fixed for the cane supply is not, however, the only problem of cane growers but marketing and financial problems are also becoming very acute.