Will govt compensate farmers for crop loss?

Adilabad: In the erstwhile Adilabad district about 80 per cent of the people depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Cotton is the major crop in the district, while soybean, paddy, sorghum, maize and other crops are also cultivated here. This year, cotton crop was severely damaged due to heavy rains in the Kharif season. The same story is of other crops as well. Crops in thousands of acres were damaged due to continual rains. Because of the rains, the cotton yield has declined this year. The low production increased the price of the cotton which is fetching close to Rs 8,500 per quintal due to high demand.

On the other hand, the government has cancelled supply of subsidised seeds of soybean and peanut. In addition, rising fertilizer prices have also put farmers in trouble. With the increase of Rs 200 per bag of the complex fertilizers, farmers had to bear the financial burden of increased input cost.

The farmers allege that it's the minimum duty of the government to support the farmers when they suffer losses due to the natural disasters.

The farmers argue that they have been paying premium to the banks for crop insurance. Therefore, in case of crop damage, the State government along with the insurance companies should pay the insurance to farmers. In 2018 -19 and 2019-20, farmers paid the Beema premium but the government did not pay their share, so they could not be compensated.

Despite the number of agitations by farmers, the government issued orders but the same has not been implemented so far. Farmers say that this year too they had expected that they would get the insurance amount for the crop damage but it did not happen.

It is noteworthy that authorities were unable to do the crop survey also. Earlier, the government used to give special incentives (subsidy) for horticultural crops by providing subsidised seeds for vegetables and fruit gardens etc. But with the removal of the annual subsidies, farmers are no longer interested in the horticulture farming any more.

In the joint district, these (horticulture) crops had been cultivated in about 40,000 acres, but this year, the area has reduced to only 10,000 acres. This led to a sharp fall in vegetable cultivation and a sharp rise in prices. The recent rise in the prices has put the farmer and consumers in troubles. Due to heavy rains, the tomato crop was destroyed and the yield was reduced. As a result tomato prices hiked to Rs 100 per kg like never before. in the joint Adilabad district, cotton is cultivated in 1,002,657 acres, soybean in 1,86,316 acres and red gram in 1,20,540 acres and paddy is cultivated in 3,23,057 acres. Rythu Sangham president Bandi Dattatri said that the State government should discharge its duty and help farmers who have suffered huge loss due to natural calamities. Since farmers have paid premium, the companies as well government should compensate the farmers for the crop loss.