Chandigarh, March 6 With the area under sugarcane declining in recent years, the Haryana government has asked farmers to adopt new technologies.
Cooperation Minister Arvind Kumar Sharma said on Friday that farmers should adopt new technologies while cultivating sugarcane, as it will help reduce the cost of cultivation and increase their income.
He said an online token system has been introduced in all cooperative sugar mills in the state, enabling sugarcane farmers to book tokens from home.
This has ensured a continuous supply of sugarcane to mills as per requirement and has saved farmers 10-12 hours per trolley while supplying their produce.
Sharma was replying to a Calling Attention Motion tabled during the ongoing Budget session of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha.
Through the Calling Attention, BJP MLA Ganshyam Dass sought to draw the attention of the House to "the continuous decline in sugarcane yield per acre in the state".
He said as a result, farmers are gradually moving away from sugarcane cultivation. Consequently, the total area under sugarcane is decreasing and sugar mills are facing reduced availability of sugarcane, the MLA said.
In his reply, the minister said that during 2020-21, the area under sugarcane was 246,357 acres, which increased to 263,499 acres in 2021-22 and further to 266,142 acres in 2022-23.
However, after 2022-23, the area under sugarcane has been continuously declining.
The minister further informed the House that as a result, the total production of sugarcane during 2025-26 is estimated to be 536.24 lakh quintals, which is 37.55 per cent (322.54 lakh quintals) lower than the total production of 858.78 lakh quintals in 2020-21.
Due to the reduction in the area under sugarcane cultivation, the availability of sugarcane for crushing in sugar mills has declined. For the current year, it is estimated at 509.47 lakh quintals. As a result, the working days of sugar mills are expected to be limited to 108 days, said Sharma.
He said sugarcane is a highly labour-intensive crop, requiring a huge number of manpower from sowing to harvesting. Over time, the availability of labour has continuously declined, and labour wages have increased. As a result, farmers are interested to grow other crops.
The limited availability of agricultural machinery for sugarcane harvesting is also a major reason for the reduction in area under sugarcane cultivation.
Although the monsoon in Haryana generally becomes active in the first week of July, due to climatic changes, rainfall has been occurring from the beginning of April in recent years.
As a result, germination and tillering of sugarcane have been adversely affected, leading to a decline in average yield and total production, he said.
Under the Technology Mission on Sugarcane scheme, subsidy of Rs 3,000 per acre is being provided to farmers for planting of sugarcane in wide row spacing to increase productivity.
In this budget for 2026-27, the government has proposed to increase the incentive from Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 per acre.
He also said that healthy and disease-free seeds are made available to farmers, for which a subsidy of Rs 5,000 per acre is provided.
Sharma said in the budget for 2026-27, the government has proposed that the farmer adopting the tissue culture method for sugarcane cultivation will be provided sugarcane seeding free of cost.