Nizamabad: Turmeric farmers fail to get fair price for produce

Nizamabad: They voted out TRS leader K Kavitha for her inability to provide them MSP on turmeric and voted to BJP's Arvind Dharmapuri hoping that he would solve their problems and establish a separate Turmeric Board besides giving good returns on their produce, but nothing worked for the farmers of Nizamabad district.

Despite the adverse conditions, farmers are making huge investments on cultivation of turmeric and hard work but do not get good returns.

To make matters worse, the prolonged monsoon rains, along with unseasonal rains and pest attack this year, the yields are not at satisfactory levels.

On the other hand, the Central and State governments are not taking steps to ensure that they could get good price of the crop produced. Despite the national and international market demand for turmeric, traders are not paying the price to farmers for various reasons.

Traders are buying the majority of turmeric at the lowest possible price, with only a few giving the highest price depending on the variety of turmeric arrivals that come to the Agricultural Market Committee.

Traders do not pay much for the old turmeric stored as well as the newly harvested crop. Traders at AMCs are slashing the overall turmeric price by imposing price cuts in the name of moisture, "curcumin".

Leaders of Nizamabad farmers' unions are demanding that the crop be procured at a fair price in line with market demand as the turmeric yield is low.

Cultivation in 55,000 acres in Nizamabad district .

In Nizamabad district, turmeric was cultivated in 55,000 acres last year. The crop did not grow due to heavy rains since it was planted. Pests also came due to unfavorable weather. Frequent heavy rains from June to January only damaged the turmeric crops. And the turmeric plants did not grow due to water in turmeric farms.

Farmers spent huge sums of money on pesticides for pest control. To survive all these, the farmers cultivated short varieties as well as long duration varieties.

Due to lack of other income, farmers are bringing large amount of the produce to the AMC without giving a second thought to what the turmeric rate would be in the market.

20 days purchases ..

At Nizamabad AMC

Traders at the Nizamabad Agricultural Market have been buying turmeric for the past 20 days. Farmers who brought old turmeric for sale in the early days of purchase are now also bringing in new turmeric. Between 1,000 and 1,500 bags of turmeric are brought to market daily for sale. Turmeric kada and gola varieties are being on sale. Initially the turmeric price was between Rs 5,500 and Rs 9,500 per quintal. Most farmers got between 7,500 and 8,500 per quintal. The price is determined according to the percentage of curcumin in the turmeric.

Higher prices up to 10%.

Traders are buying at a maximum price of less than 10 per cent of the turmeric yield that arrives in the market. The other 90 per cent of the turmeric brought by the farmers for sale is being bought at a price ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,500 per quintal. The price of turmeric has been declining since last week. It would fetch up to Rs 9,500 per quintal till the end of last month and are currently being bought for less than Rs 9,000 per quintal. "Kada" type tumeric quintals are being purchased for the moderated price between Rs 6,000 and Rs 7,500 per quintal.

The "sphere" type sells for Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000. Its model rate is around Rs 6500 per quintal.

Farmers are worried that the price will not go up this year due to low yields. Due to the high demand for turmeric in other states as well as in other countries, farmers want to buy turmeric at higher prices.