PROSPECTS OF SUGARCANE CULTIVATION FOR JAGGERY -A CRITICAL ANALYSIS
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Date
2022-08-04
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guntur
Abstract
Sugarcane is one of the most important commercial crops grown in the world.
In India, there are three kinds of principal products obtained from sugarcane viz., sugar,
jaggery and khandasari. Sugarcane crop provides employment to lakhs of people in the
country from the cultivation of cane to production of sugar, jaggery and khandasari.
The jaggery industry is an unorganized sector in the country run by small and marginal
farmers. In Andhra Pradesh, it is providing employment to three lakh people who live
in rural areas and relying on quick returns from jaggery. However, over the years the
jaggery consumption has drastically reduced through the substitution of sugar as most
of the cane utilized for sugar production. The other reasons for this are increased
number of sugar mills, statutory price of cane, increased consumption of sugar, jaggery
being in unorganized sector, low remunerative prices for jaggery and low preference of
jaggery by the consumes etc. Even though the consumers are not preferring jaggery due
to several reasons, some of the farmers are preparing different forms of jaggery to grab
their attention. On the other side, in this era of health consciousness, jaggery is
definitely a better substitute for sugar in terms of its medicinal and nutritional values.
There is an urgent need to popularise jaggery among the consumers and to produce
quality jaggery in order to meet the growing demand. Hence, this study has been
undertaken to assess the extent of knowledge on sugarcane cultivation and jaggery
making as well as the attitude of the farmers towards sugarcane cultivation for jaggery.
Backward and forward linkages in sugarcane cultivation for jaggery and the problems
associated with production and marketing of jaggery along with designing a suitable
strategy helps to amplify the prospects of sugarcane cultivation for jaggery.
Ex-post facto research and descriptive research designs were followed in the
present investigation. Three districts were purposively selected from three regions of
Andhra Pradesh viz., Vishakapatnam (North Coastal Region), West Godavari (Coastal
Region) and Chittoor (Rayalaseema Region) based on the highest area under sugarcane
cultivation. Four mandals from each district, two villages from each mandal and ten
sugarcane growers for jaggery from each village were selected by using simple random
sampling method. Thus, making a total of 12 mandals, 24 villages and 240 respondents
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for the study respectively. The data was collected by personal interview method through a structured interview schedule and analyzed by employing suitable statistical methods. Knowledge and attitude were taken as the dependent variables along with eighteen independent variables for the study. The results of the study shown that majority of the respondents were old aged with primary school education having small to marginal land holdings. They had medium level of farming experience, annual income, material possession, extension contact, social contact, mass media utilization, innovativeness, economic orientation, scientific orientation, management orientation, risk orientation and achievement motivation. They had high decision-making ability and drudgery perception. Nearly 41.66 per cent of the respondents had medium level of knowledge on sugarcane cultivation and jaggery making. Regarding the sugarcane cultivation, about 96.67 per cent of the respondents had high knowledge on “recommended varieties” followed by “depth of planting” (93.75%). Similarly, in jaggery making 87.50 per cent of the respondents had good knowledge on “consistency of jaggery” followed by “complexing agents” used in jaggery (85.00%). About 33.33 per cent of the sugarcane growers had neutral attitude followed by moderately favourable (25.00%) and moderately unfavourable (19.17%) attitude towards sugarcane for jaggery. Whereas, 12.92 and 9.58 per cent of the respondents had highly favourable and highly unfavourable attitude towards sugarcane for jaggery respectively. Farmers had highly favourable attitude towards “challenging nature of their enterprise” and highly unfavourable attitude towards “labour management”. Correlation analysis revealed that education, farming experience, land holding, trainings undergone, extension contact, social contact, mass media utilization, decision making ability, innovativeness, scientific orientation and achievement motivation had a positively significant relationship with the knowledge of the respondents. The variables like age, annual income, material possession, drudgery perception, management orientation and risk orientation were found to be non-significant with the knowledge of the sugarcane growers for jaggery. MLR revealed that mass media utilization, social contact, innovativeness and scientific orientation were having positive and significant contribution to the variation in the knowledge. Correlation analysis revealed that education, farming experience, trainings undergone, extension contact, social contact, economic orientation, scientific orientation, management orientation, risk orientation, annual income, mass media utilization and achievement motivation were found to be positively significant with the attitude of the respondents. Drudgery perception was found to have negatively significant relationship with the attitude. MLR revealed that education, scientific orientation and management orientation were found to have positive and significant contribution to the most of the variation in the attitude. The backward and forward linkages in sugarcane cultivation for jaggery were grouped into different components i.e., sugarcane cultivation, jaggery making and marketing under backward linkages and packing, storage, transportation and jaggery marketing under forward linkages. Regarding the input procurement, farmers were going for their own planting material. For the fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides and jaggery making chemicals they were primarily contacting village merchants. Irrigation machinery and equipment were mainly procuring from electric motor suppliers. The
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farm machinery for sugarcane cultivation and jaggery making were mainly getting from Department of Agriculture and local manufacturing companies respectively. Money lenders were major source of finance/credit. Regarding the sugarcane cultivation, majority of the sugarcane growers were having own electric motors/bore wells/oil engines. Farmers were getting labour from nearby village. Farmers had hired machinery from friends/neighbours and who had owned machinery were majorly approaching mechanics nearby town for repairs and replacements. For jaggery making the major source for labour were own family members. Majority of the farmers were hiring machinery and equipment from friends/neighbours. For technical support, farmers were mainly using his own experience and expertise. Pertaining to the forward linkages, majority of the farmers had approached local retailers for packing and the farmers do not have any storage facilities. The sources of transportation for jaggery marketing were rental vehicles. Registered jaggery merchants in market yards were found to be major linkages for jaggery marketing. The average per hectare cost of cultivation of sugarcane in Andhra Pradesh was Rs. 1,95,252 with a yield of 82.24 t/ha in sugarcane plant crop. Whereas, a yield of 73.89 t/ha was recorded in ratoon crop with a cost of cultivation of Rs. 1,41,887 per hectare. The overall BCR for jaggery making in Andhra Pradesh was 1.26. Highest BCR was noticed (1.38) in Rayalaseema Region followed by Coastal Region (1.37) and North Coastal Region (1.03). Regarding the sugarcane cultivation, “non-availability of labour” and “day by day increase in labour wages” were the major constraints. Similarly, “lack of support from government” and “lack of technical knowledge” were the problems pertaining to jaggery making. The major marketing constraints were “lack of remunerative price for jaggery” and “more middlemen involvement”. A suitable strategy was designed with four broad perspectives viz., Consumer’s perspective, Farmer’s perspective, Research and Development perspective and Administrative perspective. Consumer’s perspective was projected with strategies like “creating awareness on jaggery among the consumers”, “Public Distribution System” and “product range and branding”. Under Farmer’s perspective, the components like “capacity building”, “attracting youth” and “Farmers organizations/groups” were depicted. Similarly, Research and Development perspective was viewed with “mechanization”, “production of quality sugarcane” and “product range and quality of jaggery”. Administrative perspective includes “linkages”, “recognition under MSME” and “subsidies & incentives”.
Description
PROSPECTS OF SUGARCANE CULTIVATION FOR JAGGERY
-A CRITICAL ANALYSIS