Cane Development Programme at Eastern Sugar and Industries Ltd, Motihari

The normal health of Sugar Industry does not depend on Plant and Equipment only but the raw material (cane) availability both in quantity and quality also plays an important role.

For better availability of cane for crushing, the area of cultivation under cane should be large enough to meet the capacity of Plant. The cane availability also depends on yield of sugarcane per acre under cultivation. If the yield is more, the cane quantity will be available in lesser area of cultivation. The farmer is also benefited by the increase in acreage through Cane Development Programme of the Company.

The primary attention of the factory is to get cane having good recovery i.e. available sugar content in the cane. Higher the recovery lesser is the cost of production and higher is the sugar production. Higher recovery varieties of cane fetches a better profitability to the plant. Hence all the factories they aim to develop such varieties of cane in their area which can give high yield and high recovery.

To achieve this objective, the cane development scheme should be implemented in such a way that –

• The varieties of cane should be selected in such a way that it gives higher recovery and higher yield. The cane growers are only interested in high yield varieties to get a better return per acre of plantation.
  
  
• The varieties should be less prone to diseases and resistant to natural factors like – rats, jackals, water logging and high velocity winds.
  
  
• Well trained Cane Development staff to educate and implement the development scheme to achieve the above mentioned objective. The staff should be able to coordinate and motivate the cane growers to implement development scheme prepared under Cane Development Programme.
  
  
• Only the cane varieties suitable for the soil condition in the area, geographical condition of the land and practically proven variety should be introduced and encouraged. The new varieties should have a long life to give high yield and high recovery.
  
  

In Motihari, the existing cane varieties have very low yield and low recovery. There is enough scope to educate the farmers and motivate them to adopt the scientific methods, high-recovery variety of seed. For this, a continuous and long term development programme is to be conducted patiently and sincerely at least for 5-7 years.

Fertilizers, Pesticides, irrigation and periodical cleaning of sugarcane fields should be regularly, supervised and monitored by the cane development staff. The factory should arrange easy finance and loan to cane growers from Bank and Financial Institutions so that the Cane Development Programme is successfully executed. The top management must monitor it carefully and regularly.

At present, the proven variety of cane for Motihari is like COJ64, 8436, 8432, 95255, 95258, BO70 varieties of Pusa which can give better recovery and yield. The Cane department should be in regular touch with Research Institutions Pusa (Bihar), Shahjahanpur (U.P.), Seorahi (U.P.), Julundhar (Punjab). The seed nursery and experimental variety should only be planted in the area once they are successful in neighboring factories of repute.