A global Centre of Excellence (CoE) will come up at the Indian Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, at ₹90 crore to develop new varieties of sugarcane.

Harshvardhan Patil, president of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories, told journalists in Coimbatore on Friday that the Union government is expected to provide ₹45 crore and the rest will come be contributed by the industry.

The investments will be made in the next four years.

“Sugar mills in the country used to operate for almost 200 days a year. Now, they operate for just 100 days in a year. Sugarcane production is declining because of pests, weather, high temperature, water logging, and so on. Development of a new variety takes almost 14 years. The Global Centre of Excellence for Accelerated Sugarcane Genetic Improvement that will come up in Coimbatore will develop new varieties in eight years,” he said.

The Union government, ICAR, ISMA, NFCSF, and the Institute will sign an agreement soon for setting up of the Centre.

The Centre of Excellence will work on developing new varieties that will have higher yield and sugar recovery, enhanced tolerance to drought, flood, salinity, and heat stress, improved resistance to major diseases and pests, better ratooning ability, and suitability for sugar, ethanol, bioenergy, and sustainable agriculture.

In Maharashtra, about two lakh sugarcane farmers are benefitting from the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Tamil Nadu government should look at supporting sugarcane farmers here in adopting AI, he added.

The Additional Director of the Directorate of Sugar, Tamil Nadu, S. Arunraj, said sugar production in the State this year was expected to be almost the same as last year. Nearly 1.31 lakh hectare was under sugarcane and the area was declining. While Tamil Nadu was the sixth largest sugar producing State in the country it had the highest productivity. With extreme heat in the sugarcane growing areas, sugar recovery was just about 8 %. The Centre that will come up in Coimbatore will develop new varieties that will give higher sugar recovery, he said.

A delegation from Tamil Nadu will visit Maharashtra to study the use of AI and introduce it here in the next few months, Mr. Arunraj said.

Prakash Naiknavare, Managing Director of the Federation, added that a delegation visited sugarcane farms and the facilities at the Institute.

According to the Director of the Sugarcane Breeding Institute, P. Govindaraj, the Centre will have trained personnel, world class infrastructure, and international collaborations to develop the required varieties of sugarcane.

Published - July 31, 2026 10:23 pm IST