Farmers reap additional profit as wheat fodder prices jump

KARNAL: Roshan Lal, a 55-year-old wheat grower from Yamunanagar’s Radaur, has a reason to smile this Rabi harvesting season as he has sold out wheat-fodder of his 16 acre land under wheat for around Rs 12,000 per acre even before the entire crop is harvested.

He said the wheat growers are likely to get a good income this harvest season following more than 100% jump in the prices of wheat fodder.

As per the ground reports, wheat fodder (generally called Bhusa or Turi) is being sold at Rs 700 to Rs 900 per quintal against Rs 2,015 minimum support price (MSP) fixed for wheat by the government. “So far, I have harvested four acre wheat and earned total Rs 51,000 (Rs 12,750 per acre) from the fodder besides Rs 1.69 lakh (Rs 42,300 per acre) I got by selling wheat on MSP,” said another farmer Madan Lal, who had brought his produce to Ladwa grain market in Kurukshetra.

Farmers and fodder traders said this is for the first time in the past many years that wheat fodder is being sold at around Rs 1,000 per quintal which is nearly 50% of the wheat MSP.

“I never saw such a demand for wheat fodder in my life as the prices of Turi remained around Rs 300 to 400 per quintal in the past few years,” said a wheat fodder trader Jai Ram from Kurukshetra.

As per officials of the agriculture department, rise in fodder prices will not only add additional earnings for farmers but will help cut incidents of stubble burning during this Rabi harvest season.

“With the crop waste becoming a source of income, farmers will avoid burning it as it will generate an additional income for them,” said Kaithal district deputy director agriculture Karam Chand.

While the officials said prices of wheat fodder increased due to fall in area under wheat as the area under mustard cultivation has increased to around eight lakh hectare from around five lakh hectare in the past two years.