Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative- The Saviour of Sugarcane Sector

Abstract

Sugarcane, a crop that has a huge impact on the livelihood of many farmers and sugar industries in the world. In India, about 50 million farmers depend on sugarcane yield which is about 7.5% of the village population. India has more than 538 sugar mills produces 32.93 million tons of sugar, jaggery, and its by products like Molasses, Bagasse etc. But due to the various issues like erosion in flooded soil which leads to the nutrients leaching, declining water table due to the erratic monsoon and increase in cultivation cost and steady yield (productivity stable as about 65-70 tons/hectare), a new technology is essential to meet future demands. Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative (SSI) is a method of sugarcane cultivation whose main purpose is to enhance sugarcane production by greater input use efficiency. SSI involves the use of less seeds, less water and optimum usage of fertilizers and manures with wider spacing thus leads to more productivity( more than 40% than present), efficient water usage (more than 40% than present) ,more profit (more than 30% than present).