THE country’s most successful sugarcane growers will be recognised for their efforts when the Ministry of Sugar Industry holds its inaugural farmers awards this year.
Sugar Ministry permanent secretary Yogesh Karan said farmers who managed to win awards would also be given an opportunity to travel to India to see how small holder farms are contributing to the outstanding success of the Indian sugar industry.
“We are going to roll out the awards towards the end of this year’s crushing season and it will be a big event for our farmers and industry stakeholders,” he said.
“We want to recognise the hard workers and those who have become innovative in their work and achieved excellent results in the process.
“And we want to take our award winning farmers to India.
“The reason we want to take our most successful farmers to India is because it is the world’s biggest sugar producer and there are a lot of lessons that we can learn from them.
“Talking to our farmers about what their counterparts do in India is not as effective as taking them there and letting them see for themselves the innovative way they prepare land, plant and harvest and the outstanding results they achieve.
“We are producing 42 tonne per hectare on average and Indian farmers are producing in excess of 100 tonnes per hectare.”
Mr Karan said the farm visits in India would most likely be to Pune.
