Crush Early, Settle Early: Answering the Government’s call for an October start – Editorial by Uppal Shah
India is entering the new sugar season with adequate stocks, but a temporary supply gap has lifted prices. Maharashtra’s October 15 crushing start could ease availability, while industry groups seek compensation for potential recovery losses and lower cane weights.
Between the last bag of one sugar season and the first truck of the next, there is a stretch of weeks that the country must cross on stocks alone. This year that stretch has been mistaken for a chasm, when it is better understood as a gap in time.
The numbers are not alarming. According to Agri Mandi Live, India produced around 280 lakh tonnes of sugar last year and entered the season with stocks of nearly 50 lakh tonnes. Against domestic consumption of around 280 lakh tonnes, closing stocks on 30th September are expected to be around 35 lakh tonnes, which ISMA has said is enough to carry demand through October and part of November. India is tight just before fresh cane arrives, not short.
A gap of weeks, not a shortage of sugar
What the market feared was the gap, and it priced the fear. Agri Mandi Live (www.agrimandi.live) reported that ex-mill prices climbed to around Rs. 70/kg, pushing retail close to Rs. 80/kg, before a series of measures by the Centre, including stock limits on dealers and bulk consumers and duty-free imports of 10 lakh tonnes of raw sugar, brought them back down. In Maharashtra, S/30 sugar was quoted at around Rs. 43/kg and in Uttar Pradesh around Rs. 45 to 46/kg (excluding GST) on 19th September. I believe a market that swings from one extreme to the other within weeks is responding to the timing of supply rather than its volume.
The most direct remedy for a gap in time is to shorten it. The Union Food Ministry wrote to the chief ministers of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, which together account for around 80% of India’s sugar production, urging them to advance the 2026-27 crushing season. ISMA’s president has said an early start could lift October output to around 10 lakh tonnes, against a normal figure of about 4 lakh tonnes. Maharashtra has responded: the Ministerial Committee chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has set 15th October as the start date, compared with 1st November in 2025 and 15th November in 2024. It is a timely and welcome decision, and the industry deserves credit for backing it in the national interest.
The cost that has no owner
According to the industry experts, an early start, however, arrives with a bill, and today that bill has no name on it. Cane crushed in mid-October has had less time to mature. WISMA president B. B. Thombre has estimated that crushing between 15th October and 15th November could lower recovery by 1 to 1.5 percentage points, a loss of Rs. 450 to 500 per tonne for mills, while immature cane could weigh 10 to 12% less, costing growers Rs. 300 to 350 per tonne. With ex-mill prices near Rs. 43/kg and ISMA’s stated cost of production at about Rs. 42/kg, mills have almost no cushion to absorb that on their own.
ISMA and NFCSF have asked the Government to consider support, including compensation for recovery loss, an additional domestic sale quota equal to October production, or a waiver of CGST on domestic sugar sales. The industry had also planned to seek Rs. 500 per tonne for mills and Rs. 300 per tonne directly for growers at the Food Secretary’s meeting in New Delhi on 8th September. No decision on compensation has been reported since, and the question remains open.
The farmer side of the ledger is now visible on the calendar. Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana has announced a demonstration at Hubballi on 29th September and a Sugarcane Council on 10th October, five days before the first crushing date. A season that begins in the field cannot be settled only at the factory gate, and support must reach growers as well as mills. The next logical step is a joint meeting of the Centre, the State governments concerned and farmer organisations, and a shared-cost package announced before 15th October. Settling the cost before the first cane is cut is far calmer than settling it after.
From annual negotiation to standing policy
The larger opportunity lies beyond this October. Maharashtra’s start date has moved from 15th November in 2024 to 1st November in 2025 and now to 15th October, and each shift has been negotiated afresh, with the same arguments and the same confrontation. Minister Hasan Mushrif has said the state will discuss the date with farmer organisations before a final decision, which shows the appetite for consultation already exists.
The crushing calendar can become a standing policy tool. A stock-based trigger, set on projected closing stocks ahead of each season, could advance the start date when the pipeline runs thin and hold it at the customary schedule when stocks are comfortable. Stakeholder consultation would be built into the process and the compensation formula fixed in advance, so that mills and growers know what an early start costs and who meets it. Cane maturity, and the arrival of harvesting labour after Diwali that Thombre has flagged, would sit inside the framework rather than outside it.
The bridge is being built in time. What remains is to agree who pays for it, and to draw the plan once, so that the next crossing needs no negotiation at all.
For further inquiries please contact Uppal Shah, Editor-in-Chief, at Uppal@chinimandi.com.
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Source : ChiniMandi
