Sugarcane farmers’ protest: CM writes to PM seeking urgent meeting to address FRP concerns

As the sugarcane growers’ protest demanding a Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) of ₹3,500 per tonne in the State’s northern sugar bowl turned the heat on the government, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday blamed the Centre for the problem and wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking an urgent meeting with him to address the issues.

In the letter that was released to the press, the Chief Minister sought to draw the Prime Minister’s attention to the ongoing agitation by sugarcane farmers in North Karnataka, particularly in Belagavi, Bagalkote, Vijayapura, Vijayanagara, Bidar, Gadag, Hubli-Dharwad and Haveri districts.

He pointed out that the FRP fixed by the Central government for the 2025-26 season stands at ₹3,550 per tonne for a basic recovery rate of 10.25%. “However, after deducting the mandatory harvesting and transport (H & T) costs, which range between ₹800 and ₹900 per tonne, the effective payment reaching the farmer is only about ₹2,600 to ₹3,000 per tonne. But due to sharp increases in fertilizer, labour, irrigation and transport costs, this pricing structure has rendered sugarcane cultivation economically unsustainable,” he said.

He argued that the root of the problem is the Central policy levers, the FRP formula, the stagnating Minimum Support Price (MSP) for sugar, export curbs on sugar and the under-utilised ethanol offtake from sugar-based feedstock.

Pointing out that it was the Centre that had the authority to revise the FRP, he argued that the State only had the powers to ensure that the sugar factories adhered to the FRP norms.

“To respond constructively, we request that the Union government should immediately enable a central notification to allow States to fix or endorse a net price to farmers after H&T or mandate that mills absorb H&T so that ₹3,500/tonne net becomes feasible,” he said. The letter also sought recalibration of the recovery rate linked calculation of FRP, revision of sugar MSP above ₹31 per kg, export window to relieve mills of unsold stocks, increased ethanol allocation and assured procurement from Karnataka’s sugar-based capacity.

Meetings today

Earlier, addressing a press conference in Bengaluru, the Chief Minister announced that he would hold separate meetings with representatives of protesting farmers and owners of sugar factories to discuss the demands of farmers as well as issues related to the sugar sector on Friday in Bengaluru.

He said the decision to write to the Prime Minister was taken at the Thursday’s State Cabinet meeting.

State’s offer

The Ministers and district officials had managed to convince the sugar factories to offer an FRP of ₹3,200 per tonne at sugar recovery percentage of 11.25, and ₹3,100 at sugar recovery percentage of 10.25, he said. This would be placed before the meeting of farmers’ representatives on Friday, Mr. Siddaramaiah said.

The Chief Minister expressed concern that the Centre had increased the sugar recovery percentage to 10.25 from the level of 9.5 during the erstwhile NDA regime for determining the FRP. This would affect States such as Karnataka that had low sugar recovery percentages unlike Maharashtra that had high recovery percentage, he said.

He alleged that though Karnataka was producing 271 crore litres of ethanol a year, the Centre had given permission for the oil companies to buy only 47 crore litres from the State. While this would mean that only 17.4% of Karnataka’s ethanol production could be sold to the oil companies, Gujarat had been permitted to sell 77.5% of its ethanol production, the Chief Minister said, hinting at a biased approach.

He said the Opposition parties in Karnataka were trying to mislead the innocent farmers by blaming the State government for low FRP. He appealed to farmers not to fall prey to the politicisation.

He appealed to the protesting farmers to drop their protest on the national and State highways as that would affect the general public and to participate in the meeting instead.