Mar 25 2013
The minimum support price (MSP) for cotton is Rs 3,900 but most farmers in Gunturpalli village and surrounding places of Warangal district, about 150 km, have sold the produce for a price that is little less than the MSP in the just ending cotton season.
“We prefer to sell the produce directly rather than going through the CCI as the payments in the latter route take ten to 15 days. Also, there are issues with moisture content,” said G Mohan Reddy, a farmer.
About 1200 tonne was produced in the hamlet and 80 per cent of the farmers sold below the MSP, mainly for convenience reasons, he said adding that buyers pick up the produce from farms at their expense. Handling, transport and other miscellaneous expenses add up to Rs 250 or so.
The farmers deduct this expense from the price they expect. However, in the fag end of the season, the farmers are getting about Rs 4,400 per quintal. At a time when they thought the season has ended, a late spell of rain in January has resulted in additional two to three tonne cotton per acre and this is giving them better prices.
On the seed situation, the farmers said some seed dealers held the farmers to ransom by creating an artificial shortage and forcing the farmers to pay nearly double the price for the seed. “Many a time we end up paying about Rs 2,000 per packet of seeds as against the normal about Rs 900 for a packet,” the farmers said adding that in many cases they engage daily labour in the queues to collect seeds.
Normally, about 1.5 to two packets and in some cases three packets are needed per acre. They said they had no choice but to sow the Bt cotton varieties due to the low yields others. With NREGS on, availability of daily labour has been a challenge as there is demand for labour from all quarters almost at the same time, according to S Vijender Reddy.
With fertility of the soil eroded, use of fertilisers cannot be curtailed, according to Velanganreddy, a farmer with 20 plus acre under cotton cultivation. He said fertilisers accounted for nearly 20 per cent of the input cost- about Rs 4,650 per acre.
Cotton picking accounts for about 30 per cent and weeding about 20 per cent of the input cost, which is around Rs 20,000 per acre. Figures from Mahyco Monsanto Biotech, which organised the visit to farm last week, said cotton production in Andhra Pradesh is around 56 lakh bales in 2011, up from 19.75 lakh bales in 2002. The yields have been around six quintal per hectare.(Source: http://www.mydigitalfc.com)