Govt meditating on meaning of national crop

KATHMANDU, JAN 07 -

The Ministry of Agricultural Development has said that it has no clue what the term “national crop” means after the Cabinet ordered it to attach the title to sugarcane.

The ministry said that it had been holding discussions to decide what national crop means. If sugarcane is declared the national crop, it will be the first such designation.

“No crop has been declared a national crop, and the crops that are given priority are called major crops,” said Uday Chandra Thakur, spokesperson of the ministry.  

Three weeks ago, the Cabinet had directed the ministry to declare sugarcane as the national crop in an effort to ease problems being faced by sugarcane producers. The decision was made without consulting the ministry.

Thakur said that the ministry would decide how much weight or priority a national crop should be given after holding discussions. “We will first prepare a modality based on the outcome of the deliberations.”

The government does not fix sugarcane prices, and the factories and farmers are told to sort out disputes themselves. This has led to tensions between the two during harvest time annually.

Fixing the price of sugarcane is a longstanding issue. Every year during harvest time, sugarcane growers and sugar mills confront

each other for a customary tug-of-war over fixing the price of cane.

This year too, sugar mills have delayed fixing cane prices. Farmers said that the delay in price fixation had forced them to sell their products on credit, and that they had not received payment for the last three months.

The government had formed a talk team to resolve the issue, but it failed several times to determine prices.

On January 3, 2011, the local administration was forced to impose a daylong curfew on a 13-km stretch of the East-West Highway in Sarlahi district following a strike organized by farmers demanding fixation of cane prices. At least 40 police personnel were injured in clashes with the irate farmers.

Normally, sugar producers determine sugarcane prices based on the rates then prevailing in India. Cane producers for a long them have been complaining that sugar producers, taking advantage of the absence of a base price, have been delaying fixing cane prices which forces farmers to sell their products at cheaper rates.

Farmers are also forced to sell their sugarcane on credit to prevent the crops from drying up in the fields.

In a bid to end the longstanding issue, a team comprising lawmakers Bikram Khanal and Dev Karan Jaiswal had urged the Prime Minister last February to declare sugarcane as a national crop to encourage farmers and sugarcane farming.

During the meet, Prime Minister Sushil Koirala had assured them that the problem would be resolved by holding discussions with the secretaries from the Industry, Agriculture and Finance ministries.

Nepal produced 2.93 million tonnes of sugarcane in 2012, up from 2.71 million tonnes in 2011. Land under sugarcane farming has increased to 64,472 hectares in 2012 from 62,998 hectares in 2011, according to government statistics.

SOurce: The Kathmandu Post