As the kharif season of cultivation is approaching, the farming community in Telangana is doing a serious rethink on taking up cotton again since the alternative crops raised during 2016-17 agriculture year have left a bitter experience due to lack of remunerative price to pulses, maize, soyabean, chilli, turmeric and other crops.
Plunge in price
The alternative crops were raised on a large-scale by the farming community after opting out of cotton crop following a campaign taken up by the State Government suggesting them to reduce cultivation of cotton as much as possible, citing a plunge in its prices during the previous year.
Accordingly, cultivation of cotton was restricted to 14.1 lakh hectares from about 17 lakh hectares in the previous five years.
Suitable weather condition
“With the help of suitable weather conditions the yield and production of all the alternative crops was very high in the just-concluded agriculture year but the market dynamics have kept their prices low causing a lot of heartburn among the farmers.
The recent incidents linked to red chilli are a result of the farmers’ anger against the trader-dominated marketing system which saw price crash”, a senior official of the Agriculture Department admitted.
Further to the farmers woes, there was no backing of the minimum support price policy for crops such as chilli and turmeric since they are commercial crops and had very good price in the market in the previous year.
The fate of maize, soyabean and redgram and other pulses, in spite of having the MSP, also faced similar fate due to increased cultivation and production.
Mainstay
Cultivation of cotton has been the mainstay of Kharif farming in the State in the recent years as it comprised a minimum of 40% of the total sown area.
“In spite of high cost of cultivation we have been raising cotton in the recent years as it gives us minimum assurance on production and price”, Ramappa, a farmer near Hatnoor of Nyalkal mandal in Sangareddy district explained adding that the crop has the capacity to withstand drys pells and rejuvenating after a good spell of rain later.
A large number of farmers across Telangana opted out of cotton in 2016-17 with the hope that they could overcome the losses being suffered in cotton since the prices of pulses ruled well in the recent years.
“I have cultivated soyabean with redgram as inter-crop in the last kharif and got good yield.
However, poor price for the crops have forced me to consider cultivating cotton again in the coming season as the prices of the fibre crop were very good”, felt another farmer Ramulu near Choutkoor in Pulkal mandal.
