Anantapur: Farmers face ruin as chilli prices turn less spicy

Anantapur: Farmers cultivating red chllies in more than 20,000 acre harvested nearly 3 lakh quintals of red chillies but are in financial dire straits due to a drastic fall in prices.

Chilliies which were sold at Rs 25,000 per quintal during last crop year have now crashed to Rs 16,000 per quintal owing to over production in border areas in Karnataka.

The farmers have two options, one, to sell the chillies in Guntur chilli market which is far away from the district. The second option is to sell their produce at Byadigi market in Hubli in Karnataka despite the low price. There are few purchasers in Karnataka, that too at prices 25 per cent lesser than the original market price.

So in the given circumstances, the farmers are exploring the third option of grading them and preserving them in ware houses.

The farmers have no warehousing facility in the district for storage. Again, they are forced to store their produce in neighbouring Karnataka in Bellary, Hosepet, Byadigi, Hubli, Haveri and in Davanagiri areas. Having cultivated the crop with bank loans, payment of storage rent is an additional burden for them. For one bag of chillies, the storage rent is anywhere between Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000 per month.

The farmers in the district have no warehousing facility and no minimum support price. They are the mercy of the market forces.

Ramana, a chilli farmer in Bommanahal mandal told 'The Hans India' that he had produced red chillies in 10 acre and had procured loans up to Rs 20 lakh. Now with the crash in prices and the additional financial burden for storage in warehouses and wait for the prices to pick up, it is nothing but crushing the already broken back of farmers like him. "When will my crop get remunerative price and how can I pay interest on loans with not a rupee on hand?" Ramana laments.

He is urging the government to purchase the crop by paying the minimum support price. Other chilli farmers in the mandal are criticising the government for failing to purchase their crop in Rythu Bharosa Kendra as promised.