A series of policies to retain sugar cane growers

The total area of sugar cane material for 3 sugar processing factories in Nghe An in the crop year 2021 - 2022 has 19,223 hectares, concentrated in the districts of Quy Hop 4,961 with hectares; Tan Ky 3,171 hectares; Nghia Dan 7,160 hectares; Quy Chau 1,158 hectares; Quynh Luu 936 hectares; Anh Son 449 hectares…

The average yield of sugar cane is expected to reach 61 tons per ha, 5 tons higher than last year's crop, which is the year that achieved the highest yield in the last 3 - 4 years. Especially, the price of sugar cane purchased by businesses is higher than in the 2020 - 2021 crop year from VND 170 - 200 thousand per ton. It can be said that farmers are very excited.

Sugarcane prices rebounded

Sugar cane crop year 2021 - 2022 is considered to gain the highest yield and price in the last 3 - 4 years.

According to many technical experts and farmers, this year's sugar cane crop is good thanks to favorable weather, less heat and drought. The second is thanks to the additional investment of sugar factories in microbial organic fertilizers produced from sludge, bagasse. Thirdly, it is grown mainly with selected varieties, with little or no grass shoots disease like the previous sugarcane crops.

Truong Minh Chau in Giai Xuan commune, Tan Ky district (Nghe An) excitedly said that this year's sugarcane crop, his family has planted 6 hectares of sugar cane. From the middle of December 2021 till now, his family has been harvesting sugar cane according to the selling schedule for Song Con Sugar Factory. It is expected that this sugar cane crop, his family will harvest about 450 tons of sugar cane, with the average yield of sugar cane is 75 tons per hectare. Sugar cane is bought by the factory for VND 1,050,000 per ton, helping his family earn an income of nearly VND 500 million.

Not far from Giai Xuan commune, Tan Hop is one of the communes with the largest sugar cane growing area in Tan Ky district. Nguyen Chau Phong, a commune agricultural officer, said that in 2021, the Tan Hop grew 480 hectares of sugar cane with 614 households participating, nearly 120 hectares more than last year's crop.

The sugar cane acreage increased again because it is converted from cassava land, which was both inefficient and was forced to convert by mosaic disease. Especially in this year's sugar cane crop, raw cane is bought by Song Con Sugar Joint Stock Company at a high price (VND 1,050,000 VND per ton) in the field, if harvested 10 days before the time the company issues the harvest order, a sum of VND 30,000 VND per ton is added to the purchase price.

"This year's crop, farmers in our commune are very excited because the sugar cane area has increased again, the yield is the highest (average 66 - 67 tons per hectare) and the purchase price of the sugar factory is also at the highest compared to recent years," said Mr. Nguyen Chau Phong.

In Quy Hop district, the farmers here are very happy about good, disease-free sugar cane crop in recent years. Quy Hop has a biggest sugar cane acreage in recent years with the growing area up to 4,677 hectares.

The highest yield ever

Nguyen Duy Hung, Head of the Sub-Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Quy Hop district, says that in the last two years, some areas of oranges were both old, diseased, and ineffective, and had to be destroyed for crop rotation. Most of the inefficient orange areas are converted to sugar cane. In the sugar cane crop in 2021, with favorable weather, Nghe An Sugar Company Limited (NASU) also coordinated with the district to provide farmers with many good varieties, such as Decision 93159, KK3, LK9211. These are sugar cane varieties that have both high yield and short duration with a sugar level of 10 CCS or more.

Therefore, in this year's crop, it is expected that the sugar cane yield of Quy Hop district will reach an average of 77 tons per ha, the highest ever, and will be bought by Nghe An Sugar Company Limited with the price of VND 1,100,000 VND per ton, the highest purchase price ever.

Many policies to maintain the sugar cane area

In Nghe An, there are 3 sugar processing factories belonging to 3 sugar companies, including Song Lam Sugar Joint Stock Company is located in Con Cuong district; Song Con Sugar Joint Stock Company is located in Tan Ky district, and Nghe An Sugar Company Limited is located in Quy Hop district.

All 3 sugar factories have a total capacity of 13,300 tons of raw cane per day. Each company has its own raw material area, which is clearly planned by the People's Committee of Nghe An province for each company to directly work with the local authorities and farmers on the development plan of the sugar cane material area.

In order to develop and maintain sugar cane material areas, sugar companies must always keep abreast of the fluctuations of sugar cane in different regions of the country in terms of area, yield, price... and suggestions from growers to offer mechanisms and policies that are both pleasing to the people and achieve the company's goals, ensuring mutual benefits for both parties.

Last year, at Nghe An Sugar Company, there was a policy of non-refundable support of VND 2 million per ha on reclaimed land, land converted from rice that is not actively irrigated to sugar cane; interest-free loan of VND 14 million and an additional support of VND 3 million per ha to buy sugar cane varieties treated with hot water in spring 2020.

Besides, the company also lends VND 12 million per ha to buy disease-free sugar cane varieties; gives a loan of VND 12.5 million per ha and non-refundable support of VND 2 million to build a large sugar cane field; non-refundable loan of VND 70 million dong per ha to buy a small plow to take care of sugar cane, VND 55 million to buy a single row sugar cane planter and VND 85 million to buy a dual row sugar cane planter… The company also provides sugar cane slitting machine and pesticide spraying machine, etc.

At Song Lam Sugar Joint Stock Company, there are mechanisms and policies to invest VND 2 million per ha of sugar cane for an intensive sugar cane growing model. The company also gives advance investment in sugar cane varieties, expenses for land preparation, fertilizers and pesticides without interest, supports 100% of the cost of transporting sugar cane varieties for farmers who have registered to plant new varieties, etc.

At Song Con Sugar Joint Stock Company, Pham Hong Son, Vice Chairman of Tan Ky District People's Committee said: Song Con Sugar Company has many policies to encourage farmers to grow sugar cane such as supporting 20 tons of microbial organic fertilizer produced from sludge, bagasse for each hectare; land rent for sugar cane cultivation is VND 3 million ha; planting fee ranges from VND 1 to 7 million per ha depending on the specificity of each region.