UP Sugarcane Acreage is Likely to Grow by 2%

During the coming 2016-17 crushing season, the sugarcane acreage in Uttar Pradesh is estimated at over 20 lakh hectares (LH).

Uttar Pradesh is India's largest sugarcane producer and according to the preliminary sugarcane survey in UP, the acreage is likely to grow by 2%. The cane area stood at 20.52 LH during 2015-16 and with 2% projected growth, it would further grow to 20.90 LH.

"Due to proactive measures by the state government, such as providing high yielding cane varieties to farmers, timely provision of fertilisers, farm chemicals etc, which further prodded the cane growers towards higher cultivation, Sugarcane plant crop area had clocked growth of over 10%," said Vipin Kumar Dwivedi, UP cane commissioner.

Sugarcane yield is achieved through plant or ratoon crops. While plant crop is freshly sowed cane, for ratoon crop, farmers leave lower part and root of the cane crop uncut at the time of harvesting. This provides multiple crops from the ratoon before the farmers have to replant with fresh plant crop for harvesting.

This year's cane plant and ratoon crop projection of 10.80 LH and 10.10, since last year, the cane plant and ratoon crop had accounted for 9.80 LH and 10.72 LH of acreage respectively in UP.

In the Western UP divisions of Meerut, Saharanpur, Moradabad and Bareilly, the highest rise in sugarcane plant crop area has been reported.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com/