Adverse climatic conditions badly hit yields of ID crops

Srikakulam: Adverse climatic conditions like thick mist and cloudy atmosphere have affected irrigated dry (ID) crops duringcurrent rabi season in the district.

Mainly in the district, farmers are cultivating black and green gram crops during rabi season every year as ID crops in view of scarcity of water and to reduce investment.

But due to thick mist and cloudy atmosphere, these crops were damaged and yields were also reduced when compared to last year. For an acre of land, farmers obtain three bags of black or green gram yields with each bag weighing one quintal but this year farmers are unable to get even a single bag yield. After harvesting of paddy crop at the end of kharif season, farmers began cultivating black and green grams as traditional crops in an extent of 2.50 lakh acres across the district.

Due to shortage of manpower in rural areas, harvesting of these rabi crops is difficult for farmers.

Unlike paddy harvest in kharif season, farmers cannot adopt mechanisation for the harvest of rabi crops.

"For purchase of seed, cultivation, conservation and harvesting of either black or green gram crops we have to invest Rs 5,000 for per acre but we are unable to get even the investment, leave alone profits," lament P Simhachalam, R Nageswara Rao and Ch Lakshunnaidu, farmers of Tholapi, Almajipeta and Gorinta villages in Ponduru mandal.

They point out that they pay Rs 300 as daily wages for each worker engaged to gather harvest of crops.

Government announced Rs 7,196 as Minimum Support Price (MSP) per quintal of green gram and Rs 6,000 for black gram. But due to lack of proper purchasing centres (PPC) and implementation of procurement rules at field-level, farmers are forced to sell their produce to middlemen at their village-level which is another adverse situation to farmers to get reasonable price and to cover loss some extent.