HYDERABAD: The
Nizamabad farmers, who fought the Lok Sabha elections demanding Minimum Support Price (MSP) and a
turmeric board headquartered at Nizamabad, are holding meeting this week to discuss their future course of action.
They will also be discussing whether a turmeric board would really help them or if they need more supportive measures, such as a bonus price.
Interestingly, farmers haven’t been deterred by the lack of an announcement of MSP and the target 97% of turmeric sowing of the Kharif season has already been met. While Union horticulture department has began consultations to come up with report, along with recommendations, to arrive at an MSP, farmers are now wondering whether a turmeric board would really help their case.
During the consultations, some farmers expressed concern about a board being able to give them the desired results, such a ensured market export linkage. They said that, instead, they would prefer an assured market price through other methods.
“Last week we had participated in the consultations in Kammarpally, but we want to understand what is actually beneficial to us,” KL Reddy, a
farmer said
A general sense among certain sections of the farmers is that if a remunerative price can be arranged with better farming practises—such as growing turmeric with a percentage of curcumin—that would also be very useful for the farmers. As turmeric is a commercial crop, it is not included in the government’s MSP list.
This year, during the Kharif season, turmeric has been sown in 47,257 hectares, just 3% less as compared to this time last year.
So what makes farmers go for turmeric, despite not getting a remunerative price? “The production cost per acre is now Rs 1.5 lakh. We should be getting at least Rs 10,000 per tonne, but we get Rs 5000 per tonne. We are just following what our forefathers did,” Ippa Lachanna, a turmeric farmer, said. Lachanna got the highest number of votes, of all the farmers that contested, in the Lok Sabha election.