Enhancing Sugar Production through Sugarbeet Cultivation: A Move towards Crop Diversification in Punjab Agriculture

The study has examined the prospects of sugarbeet cultivation in Punjab and has reported comparative cost and return structure of sugarcane vis-à-vis sugarbeet. For study, primary data pertaining to the year 2013–14 were collected using personal interview method from a sample of 40 sugarbeet growers scattered over 22 villages of three districts of Punjab, namely Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Kapurthala. The comparative economics has revealed that the total variable cost was four-times higher in sugarcane than sugarbeet, whereas sugarcane crop gave much higher returns than beet crop. The per hectare net returns came out to be 24112 for sugarbeet and 100513 for sugarcane. Although the net returns were lower but the beet crop was effective in saving of irrigation water to the tune of 7020 cu.m/ha. The per hectare water productivity in beet crop was 13.98 kg/m³ whereas in sugarcane it was 8.17 kg/m³, clearly showing that the productivity of sugarbeet was much higher than sugarcane crop. The important constraints in the cultivation of this crop were labour scarcity, high wages of hired labour, inadequate price, perishability of crop and high incidence of insect-pest attack.