Farmers raise issue of monkey menace, officials insist on growing alternate crops

HYDERABAD: Blame it on monkeys, farmers are refusing to go for alternate crops even as officials are finding it hard to convince the farmers against cultivating paddy.
Farmers claim simians do not touch paddy while they pillage on other crops, leaving them in severe losses. Officials, on the other hand, are telling the farmers to forget about the monkey menace and focus on growing alternate crops.
“We have got enough water because of the lake and we can cultivate paddy in the 200 acres,” farmers at Dharur mandal told officials who visited them. When the farmers said monkeys were a big problem in the area and that only paddy would be safe from them, Vikarabad district collector K Nikhila said: “Leave the problem of monkeys to us. We will solve the matter. Cultivate paddy just for your consumption of rice. For the alternate crops that we are suggesting, we will also provide marketing facilities,” she assured farmers.
Collectors in the districts are literally on a mission mode to tell farmers that they should not cultivate paddy. For those farmers who are still not convinced and would rather cultivate paddy, they are being given a piece of advice. “Only if you have an agreement with a rice mill for buying paddy, cultivate it, otherwise go in for alternate crops,” officials in Kamareddy told farmers.
It was also explained to them for one acre of paddy that they cultivate, they can instead cultivate alternate crops equivalent to four acres in that area as per the water consumption. In Kamareddy, farmers are being encouraged to cultivate vegetables to get better revenue.
Farmer Anji Reddy is cited as an example by Yadadri Bhuvanagiri by district collector Pamela Satpathy to cultivate alternate crops. The farmer of Saigudem in Alair mandal is cultivating horsegram in 12 acres and mustard in another seven aces. Agriculture officials have been asked to organise visits by other farmers to the farmland of Anji Reddy to understand cultivation of alternate crops from him.
With agriculture officers holding meetings with farmers, some farmers in Siddipet informed collector M Hanumantha Rao that they had decided to go in for alternate crops as being suggested.
The farmers of Singayapalli in Wargal mandal said after soil test was done and the available marketing opportunities explored, they would cultivate vegetables or any other crops and move away from paddy.