Joy and concern: Farmers celebrate high prices but worry about rising input cost, lower yields

“How can I complain”, he asked, “when the average realisation for my crop last year was Rs 5,500/quintal (less than the corresponding MSP of Rs 5,825)?”

🗞️ Subscribe Now: Get Express Premium to access the best Election reporting and analysis 🗞️

There are other happy faces too at the auction sheds of the Gondal APMC.

Mulji Parmar from Ran village in Kalyanpur taluka of Devbhumi Dwarka district, has sold 10 quintals of jeera (cumin seed) at Rs 19,805 per quintal. The seed spice traded at Rs 12,500-13,000/quintal at this time last year.

Mansukh Rangani from Rampar Mota village of Paddhari taluka in Rajkot, watches mandi labourers weigh and bag 125 quintals of wheat that has  realised Rs 2,530 per quintal, against the MSP of Rs 2,015.

And Keshu Bhanderi from Sumra in Dhrol taluka of Jamnagar, is satisfied with the Rs 6,655/quintal that he has received for his 50 quintals of the crop — well above the MSP of Rs 5,550.

Gondal is one of the biggest APMCs in Gujarat, and attracts farmers from across the Saurashtra region. This is the time when they market their rabi (winter-spring) crops of wheat, chana (chickpea), jeera, dhaniya (coriander) and saunf (fennel).

Many also bring cotton and groundnut — which are kharif (post-monsoon) crops harvested from late-October — to sell now, hoping to get higher off-season prices. Their bets have paid off this year.

At the back of the farmers’ minds though, are two major concerns. The first is over yields.

Cotton yields have been impacted by pink bollworm insect pest attacks, while unseasonal/excess rain during January and the sudden spike in temperatures after mid-March have hit wheat and jeera.

“Never in my wildest dreams had I seen cotton prices this high,” says Ramji Bhuva, a 7-bigha farmer from Kharachiya village of Rajkot taluka. However, he adds in the same breath, his kapas yields have been only 2 quintals per bigha, a third of the levels in good years. “The higher prices will simply make up for my production shortfalls this year,” he says.

Likewise, the per-bigha wheat yield from Mansukh Rangani’s five bighas has averaged only 5 quintals, down from the 8 quintals last year.

On April 9, the Mumbai-based Cotton Association of India slashed its estimate of the country’s cotton crop for 2021-22 by 8 lakh bales of 170 kg each. Its latest figure of 335.13 lakh quintals is also below the production of 353 lakh quintals for the previous cotton year (October-September).

In the case of wheat, the Centre is yet to revise downward its all-time-high output estimate of 111.32 million tonnes released on February 16.

Farmers like Rangani, Bhuva, Gajera, and Bhanderi have no doubt benefitted from high international prices following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The benchmark Cotlook ‘A’ Index price for cotton is currently at 159.90 cents a pound, up from 87 cents a year ago. Wheat prices at the Chicago Board of Trade exchange closed at $10.96 per bushel (of 27.216 kg each) on Friday, compared to $6.54 a year ago.

This links up with the farmers’ second worry.

As global prices of agri-commodities have risen, so have the prices of diesel, fertilisers, and crop protection chemicals, which are all fossil fuel-based. State-owned oil companies have since March 21 cumulatively hiked retail prices of diesel by about Rs 10 per litre. On April 1, the Indian Farmers’ Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO) raised the price of di-ammonium phosphate from Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,350 for a 50-kg bag, and that of its popular ’20:20:0:13′ complex fertiliser from Rs 1,290 to Rs 1,400 per bag.

Prices of ’10:26:26′ and ’12:32:16′ complexes were also increased from Rs 1,440 and Rs 1,450 respectively to Rs 1,470 each per bag.

“The continued increases in fuel and nutrient prices make me nervous about the coming kharif planting season (from June). How much more will we have to pay?,” asks Haresh Savaliya (51), who harvested 27 quintals of kapas from his 5-bigha holding in Kotda Sangani village, around 32 km from Rajkot city.