Rural bodies fund farmers entering fray in protest

Farmers in Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency have adopted a novel method of drawing attention to the unremunerative prices for agriculture produce. They have offered themselves as candidates and filed nominations to contest the Nizamabad parliamentary seat. Some 63 nominations have been filed, and only three of them are from political parties, the TRS Congress and BJP.

As a result, the Nizamabad parliamentary constituency has turned into a battleground for political parties versus farmers.

It is expected that around 100 farmers may file nominations on the last day for doing so, on March 25.

The nominees are backed by farmers’ associations and village development committees in Nizamabad rural, Armoor, Balkonda, Korutla, and Jagtial assembly segments, which have provided financial aid to the contesting farmers. Each contestant needs `25,000 for security deposit.

The farmers are protesting against fall in process of their produces. Usually, farmers spend around `1.30 lakh to cultivate turmeric in one acre. They failed to get even

`1.60 lakh in return as the price per quintal hovered around `5,000. Being a commercial crop, there is no minimum support price for turmeric.

The farmers used to get

`17,000 per quintal of turmeric, but in the past few years, the price is between `5,000 and `6,000 per quintal. Their pleas for the intervention of the state government fell on deaf ears.

Rokkam Reddy Murali, a turmeric farmer from Timmapur village in Morthad mandal, said that a minimum price of `9,000 per quintal could have rescued farmers from their current plight. "We spent almost 10 months raising the crop, but are unable to get a supportive price," he lamented.

Debt-ridden farmers depend on middlemen in Nizamabad market to fix the price. These middlemen buy the turmeric at the lowest price. The Central and state governments should come to the help of the farmers, Mr Murali said.

The turmeric farmers have been on the warpath since the turmeric season began in January end. They staged road blockades, set up community kitchens on national highways and protested in several other ways to demand a supportive price for both turmeric and red jowar.

During his visit to Nizamabad last Tuesday, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao assured the farmers that women self-help groups would purchase the turmeric soon to stabilise the prices.

The MP from Nizamabad is Mr Rao's daughter, K. Kavitha. She has alleged that the Congress and the BJP were provoking the farmers to file mass nominations for the elections. She called upon farmers to file mass nominations not only in Nizamabad, but also in Varanasi and Amethi, from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi are contesting.

“I pleaded with the Centre and used all avenues to get a turmeric board for Telangana, but in vain,” she said.

A turmeric trader in Nizamabad market, who did not want to be named, said that the moisture content in the bulb variety of turmeric is 21 per cent instead of the permissible 13 per cent, and this has caused the fall in prices.

Minister for roads, buildings, and transport V. Prashanth Reddy held a meeting with the farmers’ leaders on Saturday night and urged them to withdraw from the contest. But the farmers refused to withdraw their nominations and demanded a policy decision on the turmeric issue.

More farmers are also expected to file nominations on Monday as a way of pushing the government to be more proactive on matters concerning them.