ISLAMABAD, Oct 8: The federal food ministry of food, agriculture and livestock (Minfal) has asked Sindh and Punjab to replace half of their sugarcane crop area with sugar beet in order to meet the challenge of water shortage in the country, which has reached 35pc for Rabi, it is learnt.

The ministry has found after five years of active research that it is a myth that sugar beet can’t be grown in Punjab and Sindh on commercial scale and that it is suitable to only the NWFP environment.

Minfal has also asked the Punjab government to lift its more than two-year long ban on the sowing of sugar beet in the province. The ban had been imposed in order to discourage setting up of sugar mills in the cotton zones.

The ministry has come to the conclusion that it is becoming almost impossible for Pakistan to keep up with the existing sowing area of sugarcane (on average one million hectares every year) because the crop is water intensive and takes more than a year in maturity with recovery ratio seldom exceeding 8 per cent.

On the contrary, sugar beet recovery is 10pc. It gets mature in half of the sugarcane’s time and consumes far lesser water.

According to a Minfal document, the sugarcane crop that accounts for almost the entire sugar production of the country, is adding to the existing water shortage the country has been faced with.

It says that one million hectare of sugarcane crop consumes 15 million acre feet (MAF) water till maturity. Tarbela Dam’s capacity is 15 MAF.

However, sugar beet on the same area could save half of this water and as much time of the farmer.

The Minfal has asked Punjab and Sindh to direct their sugar mills to acquire sugar beet crushing technology as well. At present, sugar mills in both the provinces can crush only sugarcane and not sugar beet. There are only three sugar mills in the country, all of them in the NWFP, which can crush sugar beet.

One of the sugar mills is located in D I Khan and has been very popular among the sugar beet growers of the nearby district Bhakkar of Punjab.

The Minfal has asked the Punjab government to encourage its farmers in Bhakkar and other areas to grow sugar beet.

The government has also lowered the sugarcane production figures to 52 million tons compared to last year’s achieved target of 63 million tons.

The Minfal is also of the view that if 50 per cent of sugarcane area is replaced with sugar beet, there could be no adverse impact on the area of wheat crop.