Mumbai: The cane crushing in Maharashtra is at the peak, and most of the mills will finish crushing by January end next year. The reasons are heavy floods in cane growing areas, lower acreage, and diversion of cane to fodder for animals.
Crushing season in Maharashtra commenced late this year. Sugar mills in Maharashtra officially kick-started sugarcane crushing season on November 22 after they got permission from state Governor BS Koshyari in the absence of a functional state government.
“In the next 30 days, about 70 per cent of the mills will complete their operations on account of lower cane availability. There has been large scale diversion of cane for animal feed”, Sugar Commissioner of Maharashtra, Shekhar Gaikwad was quoted as saying by BusinessLine.
According to the reports, the shortage of fodder scarcity resulted in farmers cutting cane and selling it as fodder for animals.
A total of 195 sugar mills participated in sugar season 2018-2019 and produced 107.19 lakh tonnes of sugar at a recovery rate of 11.26 per cent by crushing 951.79 lakh tonnes of sugarcane.
Sugar production in Maharashtra will be impacted in this season 2019-2020 as the state had been gripped with drought and flood.
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