Nearly 15 lakh hectares of cotton plantation in Maharashtra have dried up and gone to waste. Farmers claim they had sowed seeds in June, like every year, but the lack of rainfall means the seeds have not germinated.

Farmers claim the seeds are now completely useless. “In the past, we used to count rainfall in inches in the state. But now, we are measuring the same in centimetres. In Maharashtra, cotton farming is carried out on 44 lakh hectares of land, but this year cotton was sown on only 20 lakh hectares.

Even in this, most of the planted seeds haven’t germinated because there were no rains,” said Kishore Tiwari, founder of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), an NGO that has been monitoring issues affecting the farmers’ community in Vidarbha.The state agricultural commissioner, Umakant Dangat, also took the same line. “We already are late by a month, which means the yield will be adversely affected. Also, if we sow the seeds late, the plants become prone to pests and other diseases. However, I am hopeful that the rains will surely come and we will be able to get the productivity desired,” said Dangat.

No more cotton

But, it seems Dangat is unaware that farmers in rural Maharashtra have already given up hopes on cotton farming, at least for this season. “Farmers want to carry out re-sowing but not of cotton, because the time for cotton farming is gone now. They want to re-sow other crops such as pulses.

But, that’s possible only if they get help from the government, as they have already spent money on cotton farming and unless the state government provides farmers with some sort of subsidy, they cannot invest in re-plantation,” said Tiwari.

Tiwari believes the condition is grim for farmers in parched Vidarbha cotton being the cash crop that brought in the most money for them. He expects yields to drop by 50 per cent. He estimates it costs about R30,000 to cultivate the crop on a hectare of land, and that farmers have no money to bear the costs of another round of planting seeds of another crop, unless state authorities lent a helping hand.

However, the state feels some of the plantation can still be saved. As per Dangat, nearly 3-5 lakh hectares of cotton farms are safe, as these fields have access to drip irrigation. Yet, this, too, is largely dependent on the monsoon.

“I am hopeful that farmers will come up with some innovative steps and the government shall help them in every possible manner, with schemes and policies available with us from the central and the state government,” said Dangat.

An official from the department of agriculture told that the state produced 95.3 crore kg bales of cotton, with each bale fetching nearly Rs 35,000, last year.

Source - http://www.mid-day.com/