Land used in sugarcane farming has decreased from 75,000 hectares to about 30,000, says Ministry of Agriculture permanent secretary for special projects Vinesh Kumar.
At the land issues consultations in the West this week, Mr Kumar said this showed how land for sugarcane farming was being underutilised.
“At the moment we are producing around 1.5 million tonnes of cane, we want to increase that to between two million and four million,” he said.
“In terms of land area under sugarcane, it used to be 75,000 hectares, now we are at around 30,000 hectares.”
Mr Kumar said the records show there “are about 16,800 farmers, but only about 10,000 active farmers”.
“Then within that number, 80 per cent of them are producing very low harvests.
“So, there is a lot of idle land around.” Mr Kumar said there was also potential to increase production.
“It is something we want to discuss with the farmers and see how best we can increase productivity.
“If you translate our production versus the amount of land available, it comes to roughly 50 tonnes per hectare which means we are under-utilising our land.
Mr Kumar acknowledged that some land is being used for other purposes, “but we also want to see how we can utilise it for cane farming and other agricultural activities”.
He said there were 13 initiatives the Sugar Ministry had in place to assist farmers improve their yield.
