Live
- Bengal’s Jaynagar turns into virtual battlefield over alleged rape, murder of minor girl
- UN allocates additional fund to address deteriorating situation in Lebanon
- Unable to sleep properly? Blame PFAs in your blood
- Premier League said no to Man City and Chelsea's fixture relief plea, says Guardiola
- JD(U) leader puts up posters demanding Bharat Ratna for Nitish Kumar
- Over 2 lakh women joined Cong in 20 days of online membership drive: Alka Lamba
- Haryana polls: Kejriwal urges voters to cast their ballot for better future
- NIA conducts raids in Delhi's Mustafabad area, recovers suspicious materials
- EU suspends high-level meetings with Georgian govt over rhetoric
- US-UK coalition launches airstrikes on Yemeni capital, cities: Houthi TV
Drastic decline in onion cultivation in East Godavari
Onion cultivation in East Godavari has fallen steeply from 10,000 acres, including over 6,000 in Gollaprolu mandal, two years back to mere 30 acres because of lack of incentives, subsidy, rising prices and unsuitable weather conditions. Now it is limited only to Durgada village.
Pithapuram: Onion cultivation in East Godavari has fallen steeply from 10,000 acres, including over 6,000 in Gollaprolu mandal, two years back to mere 30 acres because of lack of incentives, subsidy, rising prices and unsuitable weather conditions. Now it is limited only to Durgada village.
Farmers in the district have been raising local variety of onion after cotton, chilli and vegetables, in Gollaprolu, Prathipadu, Routhulapudi, Tuni including villages of Durgada, Chebrolu, Chendurthi, A Vizianagaram villages. Last year, onion was cultivated in 6,000 acres, but the area has been steadily falling during the last six months. This year it has plummeted steeply.
The farmers maintain that they have been looking at alternative crops, because of piling up of losses during the last five years. If mulberry is cultivated, they would get 80 per cent subsidy.
It is being raised in Durgada, Chebrolu, Gollaprolu. With ‘Ber Mirchi’ getting more price and demand in star hotels the farmers are cultivating it. Usually, onion crop reaches farmers in December/January. During this period there used to be heavy import of onion from Maharashtra and Kurnool.
As a result, there is no market for the local variety. Consequently, when there is demand for onion in the district there is no yield. Depending on the land suitability and weather conditions Lead Better or the Bellary variety of onion were used to be cultivated.
With the price falling, farmers are not even able to recover their investment. Speaking to The Hans India, they wanted the government to provide seeds and subsidy for onion cultivation so that a part of the investment can be reduced.
The farmers pointed out that in the past the government used to provide seed as incentive to raise onion crops. It stopped the subsidy this year. As a result, they don’t raise onion in fields but take up gingelly seeds, tomato, pulses because of the accumulated losses .
The farmers complain that they are not able to recover even `50,000 of the total investment of `74,000. This has forced them to stop onion cultivation.
