PESHAWAR, Dec 8: Sugar cane market dynamics in central Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have gone in growers` favour because mills are procuring cane at a price higher than the officially set support price, according to farmers.

Growers are making Rs13 per 40 kilogramme more than the actual market price of sugar cane due to a growing competition between sugar mills and the gur making cottage industry.

`The mills are compelled to pay more due to declining supply and rise in demand,` said Naimat Shah, president of Anjuman-i-Kashtkaran (Association of Farmers), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The provincial government has set the support price of sugar cane crop at Rs170 per 40 kilogramme. However, the market price has gone higher to Rs183 per 40 kilogramme in Peshawar, Mardan, Charsadda and Swabi where sugar mills are facing competition from the gur making cottage industry.

Hundreds of gur making units, called Gaarain in Pashto, have become operational in Charsadda, Mardan, Peshawar, Swabi, Nowshera, and parts of Malakand region. These areas, according to farmers, have considerabledemand for gur as rural folks prefer it over white sugar.

As a large number of sugar cane growers in these areas have diverted their produce to the brown sugar industry, sugar mills in Peshawar and Mardan have a competition at hand to beef up their stocks for their ongoing cane crushing season. The changing market dynamics, said Mr Shah, had caused some economic relief for the growers.

Earlier, their demands from the provincial government to fix the sugar cane support price for the current season at Rs250 per 40 kilogramme remained unheard.

The Sugar cane Control Board, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has fixed the sugar cane support price at Rs170 per 40 kilogramme, which is Rs15 less than the growers` cost of production calculated by the Directorate of Agriculture Extension.

The price spiral has given the growers a hope that price would further increase in coming days. `I hope they (mills) would pay more to farmers to maintain their cane crushing operations,` said Mr Shah.

Sensing the competition because of gur making units, both the sugar mills of central Pakhtunkhwa, according to farmers, started their milling operations in early November un-like Dera Ismail Khan where all the four mills began cane crushing a week ago.

A market source told Dawn that sugar mills in Peshawar and Mardan suf fered because growers diverted good quality cane to their gur making businesses, leaving the mills with low quality sugar cane.

However, growers in DI Khan are at the receiving end as the local sugar mills have a larger market to fulfill their demand for the cane crushing season.

Muazzam Sheikh, vice-president of Aiwan-iZaraat, told Dawn that mills in DI Khan purchased a large quantity of sugar cane from the nearby districts of Punjab.

Besides, the growers in DI Khan do not have the option of selling their produce to gur making industry in the absence of demand for brown sugar in their area.

According to farmers, the price hike in central KP has also been the making of middlemen who procured a substantial quantity of the growers` produce at the start of harvesting season, causing competition to sugar mills.

Growers opt for selling standing crop to middlemen, according to farmer Mohammad Khan, because they have to clear their land for the next cultivation season.