Sharad Pawar and the politics of sugar!

India is the largest consumer of sugar on planet earth but it is only the second biggest producer of sugar after Brazil. This means that any significant drop in domestic production could send the price of sugar way up not only in India but worldwide. That is exactly what has happened during the last 12 months. Sugar prices have gained 50% in the last one year. This has happened even before the current drought hit the nation last June through the middle of August 2009. The reason for this fiasco is the stupid politics of Shri Sharad Pawar. He himself is a sugar baron from Maharashtra and the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Government of India. There lies the conflict of interest. The price of sugar directly impacts the personal interests of Sharad Pawar! This is precisely the problem of sugar shortage in India. Is he responsible for creating this artificial shortage? This possibility must never be ruled out!

“India’s demand and supply has become an important factor in affecting the trend of sugar price, even though the situation in Brazil, the world’s largest sugar producer and exporter remains stable”, said Vibul Panitvong, executive chairman of Thai Sugar Millers Corporation, Thailand. He further elaborates, “India was expected to produce 22 million tonnes of sugarcane over the 2008/09 harvest, but actually produced 14.7 million tonnes. It was due to this uncertainty in production that India had to import a large amount of sugar last year, when it actually used to export around 4 million tonnes of the sweetener a year”. This is a shocking statement as far as I am concerned. India is not some third-world country in Africa any more; we ought to have a comprehensive agriculture policy as well as a sophisticated monitoring system of demand and supply. How can a third-rate sugar baron from Baramati, Maharashtra take the whole country to ransom? This fraud must be investigated!