Farmers set to revert to cotton

​Hyderabad: After facing a tempest of a situation last season, farmers in the state seem to be in a dilemma whether to revert to cotton cultivation or to go with the alternatives again. However, going by the trends, cotton is set to make a comeback after red chilli, red gram and turmeric miserably failed to return even input costs to the farmers last season.

It may be noted here that quite a few farmers in Telangana shifted to pulses, chilli, turmeric and other crops following the Central and State governments’ campaigning discouraging the cotton cultivation.

As a result, farming of cotton fell to around 12 lakh hectares in 2016 as against the State’s normal area of 17.08 lakh hectares while there was an increase in the cultivation of pulses, especially red gram, red chilli, maize and soya bean crops.

“Time has come for the farmers not to blindly opt for those crops that gave them huge returns,” a senior official of the Agriculture Department told The Hans India. Very often, farmers en masse opt for a single crop lured by its previous season’s bumper price, ignoring the fact that abundant production automatically lead to the crash of its demand.

This was exactly what the farmers experienced in last season, he said, pointing to the price crash of red chilli, red gram and turmeric etc crops. Further, he advised the farmers to take up all the crops proportionately instead of depending on one crop.

However, the government is expected to come out with its agriculture action plan in the second week of June, the likely projections indicate that overall food grains production is cut to 90.89 lakh metric tonnes against the last year’s 97.41 lakh metric tonnes.

According to preliminary estimates, cotton production will be increased by 3 lakh metric tonnes. While the sources in Agriculture Department claim that they have adequate stocks of seed of all crops, the All India Kisan Sabha national vice-president Sarampally Malla Reddy said: “With the kharif is fast approaching, it’s ridiculous that government is yet to release its agriculture action plan.

Unless the government makes seed and crop loans available before June 10, farmers likely to face problems again like last year.”

Predicting that cotton farming likely to soar to 20 lakh hectares in the ensuing kharif in the State, he demanded the government to reach out the farmers suggesting farm pattern in accordance with their agro climatic zones.