Unrest grows among cotton farmers as prices drop to Rs 7,000 per quintal

A farmer leader from Vidarbha region, Vijay Jawandia, said, “There is huge unrest among the cotton farmers. Apart from low prices for the crop, the vagaries of climate change have added to their woes.”

Unfortunately, the problems of farmers have not been adequately addressed, he added.

Farmers in Yavatmal district in Vidarbha held a protest over the past two days. They set fire to cotton bales to display their anger and helplessness.

Maharashtra is among the largest cotton cultivating states in the country. The area under cotton plantation in 2022-23 was 42 lakh hectares. Last year, cotton fetched high prices up to Rs 14,000 per quintal. This encouraged farmers to cover maximum area under cotton. However, the price fall and rains adversely hit farmers. There are 80 lakh farmers in the state who grow cotton.

Agriculture minister Abdul Sattar has assured help to farmers. The process of estimating the losses due to rains and hailstorm through panchanamas are complete. And compensation process is underway, he said.

Jawandia said, “The state government should provide a subsidy of Rs 5,000 per quintal for cotton. Unless the government gives financial aid, it will be difficult to pull farmers out of financial crisis.”

The farmers had shown a lot of patience. They withheld their stock, hoping prices will rise. But with no signs of price rise, farmers are forced to bring stock in market and go for distress sale. In many cases, they are not even able to recover the investment expenditure as crops up to 40 per cent have been damaged or of low grade.

After soyabean, cotton is the popular crop that farmers depend upon in backward regions of Vidarbha and Marathwada for livelihood. Earlier, state government had identified 115 tehsils in 18 districts as cotton producing areas in state.

The 115 cotton growing tehsils are in Aurangabad, Jalna, Parbhani, Hingoli, Nanded, Beed, Buldhana, Amravati, Nagpur, Akola, Yavatmal, Wardha, Chandrapur, Nashik, Dhule, Nandurbar, Jalgaon and Ahmednagar districts of the state.

Another farmer leader, Kishore Tiwari said, “The crisis of farmers is due to wrong government policies. The centre and state intervention are essential to support the cotton agriculture sector. The farmers’ interest should be integral in determining the policies which is lacking.”

According to Tiwari, “Apart from price fall, the low export also hit the prices. Last year, farmers exported 60 lakh bales of cotton. As against this, the export was only 20 lakh bales this year.” Moreover, the import of 10 lakh cotton of bales from other countries has also led to price crash.