Sugar Industry Outlook and Challenges

Sugar Industry Outlook and Challenges

Monday, March 01 2021

India's India's sugar industry is the second largest Agro-based industry.1 This industry is the key generator of employment and contributes towards economic development through forward and backward linkages. According to the March 2020 Niti Aayog report,2 sugar industry generates direct employment to over 5 lakh workers through sugar mills and about 10 lakh workers through indirect means, which in turn has impacted the livelihood of about 5 crores farmers and their dependents. In India there are more than 700 sugar factories installed with the crushing capacity of about 340 Lakh Metric Tonnes (hereafter LMT) and annual turnover turnover of about ? 80,000 crores. Sugar production depends on many factors e.g. number of sugarcane cutters available, number of sugar mills, production technique, recovery rate, i.e., the amount of sugar extracted from sugarcane etc. The sugar industry is more climate-sensitive in nature and thus farmer’s worry is more about the weather, which is why this crop is often referred to as 'Lazy man’s crop’.

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