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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Distressed farmers call it quits in Anantapur

Distressed farmers call it quits in Anantapur

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published Published on Jun 18, 2014   modified Modified on Jun 18, 2014
-The Hindu
 

Government policies, vagaries of weather drive them to the wall

Anantpur (Andhra Pradesh): The agriculture scenario in the Anantapur district might well be on the path to irreversible damage if unchecked and acted upon with immediate urgency.

Over 15 per cent of farmers are leaving agriculture altogether, if the statistics available with the Agriculture Department are to be extrapolated to the ground realities and understood in that context.

Speaking to The Hindu , CPI district secretary and State executive member Mr Jagadeesh said that the district is indeed experiencing a huge farmer dropout rate, out of agriculture, as neither the government nor the nature is making it conducive for them to continue the profession.

Groundnut is the largest crop and often the only crop cultivated by more than 6.5 lakh farmers since more than two decades, in the district.

However, the figure came down to a little under six lakh around the start of the last decade and remained so for the better part of it before it started to dwindle in huge numbers ever since 2008.

According to the statistics of the number of farmers who bought seed from the government, which usually forms over 95 per cent of the total farmers taking to groundnut, the number of farmers benefiting from the seed supply fell from a little over 6.3 lakh farmers in 2008 to 3.2 lakh farmers in 2013 - a decrease of over 48 per cent in just five years. "Most of these farmers who are not buying the seed are not going in for other crops either. They are just choosing not to take to farming at all as the vagaries of the nature and lopsided policies of the government have meant that the farmers have decided not to end up in losses by sowing," said Mr. Jagadeesh

The groundnut crisis has hit the farmers so hard that tens of thousands of farmers have migrated from the district in search of livelihood as the lopsided policies of the government trying to make agriculture a profitable one through crop insurance and input subsidy came a cropper in matter of just a few years.

"There is an urgent need for a comprehensive new policy which looks at a very long term solutions with short term alternatives, while being one which is tailored to answer the localised issues through a localised solution," said Malla Reddy of the AF Ecology Centre, who has been at the forefront of the fight for the betterment of the ecology as a whole and consequently almost all issues relating to the rural economy.


The Hindu, 17 June, 2014, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/distressed-farmers-call-it-quits-in-anantapur/article6121982.ece


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