A persistent shortage of labor and rising costs have led to an increase in standover cane during the 2022 and 2023 seasons. In 2022, there were 26,040 tonnes of standover cane, with 82 percent attributed to labor shortages or labor costs that farmers could not afford.
According to Bhan Pratap Singh, the chief executive officer of FSC, the standover cane for the 2023 season rose to 28,575 tonnes, reflecting a 10 percent increase from the previous year. Singh highlighted that 93 percent of the cane was not harvested due to labor-related challenges.
He noted that 87 percent of this standover cane came from hilly and undulating terrain, where mechanical harvesting is not feasible, which is a widespread issue for manual harvesting operations. Currently, manual harvesting represents about 50 percent of total cane harvest, but the number of cane cutters has dwindled to approximately 5,000-6,000.
Singh mentioned that farmers have struggled to find laborers willing to work, particularly for harvesting. In collaboration with the Ministry of Sugar Industry, FSC aims to introduce harvesters suitable for hilly terrains over the next two years.
He reported that manual harvesting accounted for 42.2 percent of the total cane harvested this season, marking a 5 percent increase from 2022. In 2016, mechanical harvesting made up only 8.9 percent of the total, indicating significant progress in mechanization over the past seven years. The number of mechanical harvesters has grown, and the volume harvested mechanically has risen to 42.4 percent of the total crop, underscoring the pressing need for mechanization in the sugar cane industry.
During the 2023 season, the total crop amounted to 1.57 million tonnes, harvested from an area of 32,285 hectares, supplied by 10,565 growers with an average yield of 47 tonnes per hectare.