Socio-economic constraints perceived by cane growers in sugarcane production in Punjab

Sugarcane crop is an annual crop which yields income to the farmers after nine months. Contrarily, most of the farmers were in immediate need of the money for livelihood. This gave rise to manifold obstacle in the production and disposal of sugarcane. Moreover, the farmers pass through various kind of constraints right from the time of sowing till the marketing of the crop. The study is attempted to identify various constraints faced by the cane growers in Punjab. The findings revealed that unaware of new technology, paucity of labour and high rate of wages, insufficient source of irrigation, and higher interest rate along with inadequate credit availability were major technological, socio-economics, infrastructure, financial and marketing problems constraints faced by the famers. The low sugar recovery, shortage of sugarcane supply, inability to pay arrear to the farmers were important problems faced during the processing of sugar which leads to non-viability of the sugar mills.