Lucknow, Nov 27 (IANS) Sugarcane farmers in Uttar Pradesh will sell their produce to sugar mills in Uttarakhand and Haryana if the state government did not raise the advised price to Rs.215 per quintal from the current Rs.165-Rs.170, a farmers’ body said Friday.
The Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) convened a meeting of farmers in Muzaffarnagar district, some 350 km from Lucknow, in which they passed a resolution saying they would sell sugarcane to mill owners in neighbouring states.

“In Uttarakhand, the mill owners have agreed to give Rs.215-Rs.220 per quintal for our produce,” BKU’s general secretary Rakesh Tikait told IANS on phone from Muzaffarnagar.

“We are also in the process to have such an agreement with the mills in Haryana, where cane growers get Rs.200 for their produce,” he added.

According to BKU, the farmers would finalise their plan to sell sugarcane to mills in Uttarakhand at their Dec 1 meeting in Lucknow.

“If the state government fails to meet our demands and does not agree to pay us at least Rs.215 per quintal for sugarcane, we will have no other option but to sell the produce to Uttarakhand mills,” Tikait said.

The farmers were spearheading an agitation across the state, demanding the government fix the state advised price for sugarcane at Rs.280 per quintal.