Indian farmers slash sugar cane planting

Farmers in India's top sugar growing state of Maharashtra are being forced to replace cane with less water intensive crops, as a scorching drought drives authorities to hold back water from dams.

The drop in plantings for the 2016/17 season - which one official estimated means acreage could fall by about a third - comes after a faltering monsoon has damaged thousands of hectares of cane in the world's second-biggest producer.

India's sugar output risks dropping below consumption for the first time in seven years, threatening to cut exports and boost global prices, particularly if imports are needed for the first time since 2008/09.

Shankar Tiwari, a farmer in Maharashtra, has for the first time in nearly a decade planted sorghum on his two acres of land instead of sugar cane due to the drought.

"For the last three months, the government has not released water from dams. How can we plant sugar cane?" asked Tiwari, who has relied on canal irrigation to cultivate cane in the Solapur district of Maharashtra, 400 km (245 miles) south-east of Mumbai.

Maharashtra, the southern state of Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh account for nearly 80 percent of India's sugar production.

After a series of bumper harvests, the states have been hit by the first back-to-back drought in nearly three decades, prompting authorities to divert water from agriculture.

India's main reservoirs are at 44 percent of capacity, compared with a ten-year average of 58 percent. Some reservoirs in Maharashtra are holding just 8 percent of capacity, compared with a ten-year average of 50 percent.

"Going by the current trend, it seems the cane area will be at least 35 percent lower next season. We will have a better understanding only in March when farmers finish planting," said a senior official at the Maharashtra state government, who declined to be named.