Journalism of Courage
Their village, Sarawan, falls under a high-profile constituency, Rae Bareli, and is barely 6 km from the district headquarters. For its farmers, the key issue is a decline in income through mentha.
“So far, no candidate has mentioned the plight of farmers. Once, farmers would spend lavishly on the weddings of their children, thanks to their income from mentha oil,” says Suresh Chaudhary, 14. “Since 2011, my income has been declining. Until last year I used to plant mentha on nearly four bighas, this year I will do so on just one bigha.” Rajendra Pasi of Karorwa planted on five bighas and has brought it down to one.
Mentha, a cash crop for farmers across Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh, Lucknow, Sultanpur, Amethi, Unnao districts since 2003, has fallen in demand.
Farmer Dinesh Chaudhary says, “Till 2011 mentha oil was sold at not less than Rs 2,500 per litre, but in 2012 it came down to Rs 1,200 per litre and in 2013 we got only Rs 800-850 per litre.”
B A Vadiraj, officer in-charge of Spices Board under the commerce ministry, says, “Farmers get Rs 800-850 for one litre oil, which is sold at Rs 4,000 per litre to companies. The balance goes to middlemen and their number has grown in recent years. Another reason for prices coming down is the availability of synthetic mentha oil at Rs 50 per litre.”
Such worries are lost on politicians campaigning. Says Ajay Agarwal, BJP candidate, “Mentha farmers have not contacted me. But I think farmers of Rae Bareli are suffering due to lack of water for irrigation.” And Umashankar Mishra, district Congress president, says, “No one has approached us about this; if they do, we will look into their problems.”
As mentha farmer Rajendra Pasi puts it: “Everybody tells us about the country’s problems but nobody is concerned about ours.”
Farmers across Awadh were introduced to mentha in 2003. Till then the crop was grown mainly in western UP . Mentha is a preferred crop also because nilgais, which destroy most crops here, don’t not graze on it. In many villages, distilleries have been installed to extract oil from mentha, nearly 20 litres oil to a bigha. Mentha oil is purchased by pharmaceutical, toothpaste and cosmetics companies.
Farmers say a “peppermint park” developed near Rae Bareli has served them no purpose.
Vadiraj says part of the blame should be put on the farmers too. “We are trying to convince farmers to utilise modern techniques, but they are not as progressive as farmers of western UP,” he says.
