ARTICLE 4

A special meeting of the Sugar Advisory Board was held under the co-chairmanship of Ishaq Dar (Deputy Prime Minister) and the Federal Minister for National Food Security, Rana Tanveer Hussain, to review the sugar market situation, imported sugar stocks and the closure of the S-Track portal.

Sugar mill owners across Pakistan have raised strong objections against government policies, claiming that recent administrative decisions have triggered an unprecedented surge in sugar prices.

India’s agricultural trade landscape is once again in focus as talks intensify over soy and corn imports. These staple crops, crucial for both food processing and livestock feed, have become a flashpoint between trade ambitions and domestic farmer protections.

The decision, taken at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, is expected to benefit nearly 45 lakh sugarcane farmers across the state. The hike comes ahead of the upcoming crushing season and follows sustained demands from farmer unions for better remuneration amid rising input costs.

Tension gripped parts of western Maharashtra, particularly the Kolhapur and Sangli districts, as sugarcane farmers staged protests demanding higher payments for their produce ahead of the 2025-26 crushing season.

Soybean prices in Telangana are currently hovering between ₹3,800 and ₹4,000 per quintal, while the MSP is set at ₹5,328 per quintal. Maize market price stands at about ₹1,959 per quintal, which is ₹441 below the MSP of ₹2,400.

Wheat and maize prices in Indore have seen a decline this week due to sluggish demand from traders and local buyers. Market analysts attribute the drop to reduced off-take from both wholesalers and retail outlets, creating an oversupply situation in the city’s agricultural markets.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to inaugurate Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited’s (HPCL) state-of-the-art Petroleum Oil Depot in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. The newly constructed facility boasts a storage capacity of 54,000 kilolitres (KL), designed to handle ethanol, petrol, and diesel, marking a major boost to India’s fuel distribution infrastructure.

A total of 214 sugar mills across Maharashtra have applied to the Sugar Commissioner’s office in Pune for permission to commence sugar-cane crushing from November 1, the official start date for the 2025–26 crushing season.

For ESY 2025-26, the government has issued a tender for about 10.50 billion litres of ethanol supply. In that total, only 289 crore litres (2.89 billion litres) have been allocated to ethanol produced from sugar-based feedstocks (sugarcane juice, B-heavy molasses, etc) — about 28% of the requirement.

Farmers in St. Kitts are raising urgent alarms as livestock suffer amid an unprecedented government feed shortage. Smallholder farmer Ms. Annette Frank revealed that feed depots have been empty for over a week, leaving chickens, ducks, and rabbits hungry.

New Delhi, 1 November 2025 – The Indian sugar industry has expressed serious concerns over the government’s ethanol policy for the 2025‑26 supply year, warning that the shift towards grain-based feedstocks could threaten sugar mills’ operations and farmer incomes.