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Adilabad Drought-hit farmers making distress sale of cattle
Reeling under severe drought impact, farmers have been making a distress sale of their cattle including oxen and other beasts of burden.
Adilabad: Reeling under severe drought impact, farmers have been making a distress sale of their cattle including oxen and other beasts of burden.
On Saturdays and Mondays, at least 50 lorry loads of cattle from Adilabad were sent to slaughter houses in Nanded, Chandrapur and Yavatmal in the neighbouring Maharashtra.
Similarly, at least 30 lorry loads of cattle were sent to slaughter houses in Maharashtra and Hyderabad from Jainur cattle market.
The cattle being sold are milch animals and calves.
The farmers recall that the current drought is the mother of all droughts. The impact is so severe that standing crops completely withered away, there is no drinking water let alone water for irrigation, all tanks, ponds and water sources have gone dry, there is an acute shortage for fodder.
The condition of farmers who raised soya beans and red gram is even worse. They switched over to these crops from cotton following the government’s advice. The yield of soya beans was barely two quintals per acre.
Speaking to The Hans India here on Tuesday, a farmer Viswanath, unable to bear with the pressure from his creditors he disposed of his pair of oxen at the weekly shandy in Adilabad for a throw away price.
According to a red gram growing farmer Narayana, the market support price for red gram was Rs 3000 a quintal as against Rs 12,000 last year. Owing to the debt burden, he said he and other farmers have been making a distress sale of their cattle.
Another farmer Lashmanna said that he thought of performing marriage of his daughter disposing of the crops. But with the crop failure, he decided to dispose of the cattle to meet the wedding expenses at least.
Farmers who refused to sell their cattle in the past for thousands of rupees are selling away the beasts of burden for a pittance. The distress sale is due to unable to withstand the fodder shortage.
The farmers have been appealing to the State government to supply fodder free of cost to farmers and take remedial measures to overcome the fodder shortage.
