Groundnut farmers in distress as investment costs zoom

Anantapur-Sathya Sai district: Groundnut crop cultivated in the twin districts is now under severe stress and showing signs of sharp decline in acreage and production. Farmers despite the advent of monsoon are not enthusiastic about sowing. About 40 percent of farmers have kept their lands idle as they are caught between the devil and deep sea.

Two demotivating factors, increasing investment burden and low-crop yields are making the farmers to rethink on sowing. If the sowing is only for reaping losses, then why should one knowingly land into indebtedness, is the question dogging the farmers.

Some farmers fed up with the continued loses year after year are thinking in terms of crop diversification towards commercial crops. Many farmers were showing reluctance for crop diversification on sentimental grounds as they have an ancestral attachment with groundnut crop but now all myths appear to be fading and they are now thinking in terms of crop diversification towards pulses and millets etc. The reasons for poor show of groundnut are many due to sordid state of affairs and problems dogging the groundnut farmers.

Shantaraju, a groundnut farmer of Dharmavaram, talking to The Hans India says that they stopped cultivating in their 10 acres land on realising the futility of their cultivation exercise. They have not sowed this season. The government support for groundnut cultivation is nominal, he sighed.

Kulayappa, another groundnut farmer of Kalyandurg says that every year investments are shooting up due to costs of cultivation increasing including fertilisers, pesticides and transportation. The overall investment has increased from Rs 35,000 to Rs 45,000 per year. Due to low-crop yield even 50 per cent of returns on investment is not coming back, feels the farmers.

The groundnut acreage had been diminishing year after year. Official records suggest that in the past decade the acreage declined from 8 lakh hectares in 2010 to 3 lakh hectares in 2021. Similarly, the yields declined from 450 kg per acre in 2010 to 298 kg per acre in 2021. The highest yields were in 2017 when the yield was 992 kg per acre and 670 kgs in 2015. One can find 70 percent decline in yields which is the main demotivating factor.

Another paradoxical situation is the vagaries of nature. Farmers were once victims of monsoon failure but now for some years there is a climate change in the district which means the monsoon position is better and the district had been experiencing good amount of rainfall but the farmers woes are now different. The main challenges faced by the farmers include staggering increase in cultivation expenditure and low crop yields.

Agriculture observers, however, thinks that if this state of affairs push farmers into crop diversification, then it is a good sign for the better of farming community.