NABARD joins farmers and industry in advocating for SSI promotion among sugarcane growers

Sguarcane growers demand consistent extension support from industry and government to upscale SSI technoloty
By: AgSri, NRMC NABARD
 
Aug. 25, 2011 - PRLog -- Inaugurating India’s first National Seminar on Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative (SSI) at Tamilnadu Agriculture University at Coimbatore, Mr.S.K.Mitra Executive Director NABARD stressed the need for promoting farmers participation in value chain than just confining them to production to improve farmer profits in the light of new challenges in the form of climate change. Indian sugar production is in crisis due to various reasons such as increasing cost of production, lack of consistency in price support system, lack of sustainable farm practices and innovative production techniques and lack of proper extension support.  ‘More with less’ approach is simple agriculture innovations applied for sugarcane farming using less inputs-water, seed and fertilizers. The approach called Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative (SSI), which has helped over five thousand farmers in India to improve their water productivity, profits and reduce their ecological impact. SSI is a “More with Less” methodology for increasing the productivity of sugarcane by changing the management of plants, soil, water and nutrients.
Dr.Vijyan Nair, Director, Sugarcane Breeding Institute (Coimbatore), which cohosted the two-day seminar along with AgSri and NABARD, said, “time has come for vertical expansion of agriculture through productivity enhancement, as horizontal expansion is not possible owing to shortage of land”. As per the background paper released by AgSri a group which is promoting sustainable approaches to sugarcane farming, the seed cost and cost of fuel for irrigation are estimated to be about 15 percent and 14 percent respectively of the total cost of cultivation, and this is next only to the labour cost at 21 percent. Speaking at the National seminar attended by sugar industry, drip companies and farmers, Dr.Biksham Gujja Chairperson AgSri advocated for public private partnerships involving industry and farmers to address crisis in industry.  According to him despite huge investments in agricultural research the global crisis in agriculture can be tackled if farming moves from input oriented approaches to knowledge oriented one that calls for synergy between industry, multilateral institutions and government.

Key Outcomes-

1.   There is consensus among key stakeholders to bring one third of the Sugarcane Cultivation be brought under SSI by end of Plan XII to meet the increasing demand for sugar, fuel and energy needs while reducing the seed cane, water and optimizing fertilizer input requirement..
2.   For this every state Government (e.g. Tamil Nadu) has to set state targets by consulting the sugar factories for promoting SSI
3.   Every Sugarcane factory and Group may want to have internal targets to contribute to the national target
4.   Training and knowledge sharing and dissemination particularly in regional languages to reach large number of farmers    
5.   The required resources- human, financial and institutional may put in place to meet the targets

“To meet the scale of SSI operations, it requires developing market-oriented models for extension services, including capacity building of extension workers both in the public and private sector, as well as farmers. This is a multi-stakeholder process, but the private sector has an increasingly larger role to play”, says Mr.Harsh Vivek, Associate Operations Officer, International Finance Corporation. Addressing the gathering Mr.R.Gnanaoli, Deputy Director, Agriculture Department Tamilnadu informed that Government of Tamil Nadu has fixed a target of 10000 ha this year to promote SSI. “What we are looking for is just not subsidy but sustainable investments sustainable production and sustainable productivity” said  Mr.Manickam, Chairman Sakthi Sugars.  Dr.Rajpal Singh cane advisor to IFC said, “for any technology transfer capacity building is key and it has to be taken up on a large scale to change the way sugarcane farming is conducted”.

Speaking at the seminar farmers called for increased extension support to mainstream SSI among sugarcane growers.  Mr.Krisha Shinde, who successfully promoted SSI in Latur district of Maharashtra says, “more than subsidies we require knowledge inputs on a consistent basis to promote SSI”.  Nabh Kishore Dash, a small farmer from Odisha has said that reduced input costs, reduced labor and water has resulted in increased income of two and half times through SSI. Dr.DG. Hapase, ex Director Vasantdada Institute of Sugarcane said, its time that SSI gets attention and support from industry and government to realize its potential in improving profits not only for industry but also the marginal farmers.

For Media queries please contact

TVVV. Rao (Vishy), Sr.Manager, Business Development, AgSri
vrao@agsri.com-+918106844545

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Source:AgSri, NRMC NABARD
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Tags:Ssi, Nabard, AgSri, Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative, Sugar Mills, Sugarcane breeding Institute
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Location:Secunderabad - Andhra Pradesh - India
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