Farmers seek govt intervention

Srikakulam: With the drastic fall in the prices of casuarina and eucalyptus logs, farmers sought intervention of the government. They are now reluctant to grow these trees fearing that they would incur losses. In Srikakulam district, both casuarina and eucalyptus trees are grown in dry lands in Ranastalam, Laveru, Etcherla, G Sigadam, Ponduru, Srikakulam rural, Gara, Polaki mandals and sea coast areas by the local farmers.                

The logs of these trees are used by paper mills as a raw material across Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. But most of the paper industries like Jaipur Mills in Odisha, AP Reyans in Warangal and Sirpur Kagaznagar in Adilabad remained closed.

The JK and BILT  Paper Mills are not purchasing these logs for the past  several years. At present, these logs are being purchased only by the Andhra Pradesh Paper Mills in Rajahmahendravaram and ITC at Bhadrachalam. As a result, the demand came down drastically and prices  fell. 

Earlier, a tonne of casuarina logs used to fetch Rs 5,400 but now it fell to Rs 3,000 and price for eucalyptus logs also fell by more than half. Earlier, it was Rs 6,000 per tonne but now Rs 3,300. For growing of these trees, lot of investment amounting to Rs 10,000 have to be made from the stage of sowing of saplings itself. 

“The state government’s intervention is necessary to fix a reasonable price for these logs as farmers are facing severe losses and the managements of paper mills are not responding properly,”  Casuarina and Eucalyptus Farmers Association honorary president Gali Venkata Reddy said while speaking to The Hans India here on Friday.                   

Casuarina and Eucalyptus Farmers Association president Baswa Gurumurthy Reddy said, “We are requesting the ministers and the officials concerned to to draw their attention but we haven’t received a positive response yet”