THOOTHUKUDI : Gundu chilly farmers are an upset lot here as neither the yield nor the purchase price as quoted by the traders are as per their expectations.The farmers have urged the Tamil Nadu government to help tide over the crisis.Chilly cultivation is extensively carried out in Vilathikulam, Ottapidaram and Ettayapuram taluks in Thoothukudi district. According to officials, chilly cultivation is spread over 12,385 hectares as per the 2017-18 records, with 11,150 hectare in Vilathikulam and 831 hectare in Ottapidaram.
There are two kinds of chilies - long and stout. The long chilly, otherwise called samba, is cultivated in irrigated areas whereas the stout one is raised at rainfed stretches. The farmers cultivate chillies either as an inter-crop in onion fields or as the main crop. Stout chilies are cultivated in Vilathikulam and Ettayapuram areas for its spicy taste and also for its good price.
However, that’s not the case this time around. The cultivation of chillies, especially the stout one, had been largely affected due to weather condition and poor price quotation.The farmers, who cultivated chillies last October and September, had started harvesting for once a week from mid-February. However, the harvest left a bitter taste in the mouth of the farmers as they could reap only one quintal per acre, instead of the normal yield of four quintals.
Agrarians say that poor rainfall and pervasive leaf curl disease is the reason for the poor yield. The sporadic rains during the Northeast monsoon resulted in withering of plants. Also, the poor showers and cold climate became conducive for pest attacks, mainly whitefly, which spread the leaf curl disease rapidly across the chilly fields, they added. Adding fuel to the fire, the traders too quote a very low price for the stout chilies. One quintal of chilli that sold for `27,000 last year, is currently sold for only Rs 12,000 and this has hit the farmers’ remuneration to a large extent. However, the rates of the samba chilly remained unaffected at Rs 8,000 per quintal.
A farmer from Kuruvarpatti near Vilathikulam, Dharmaraj said that he had spent at least Rs 10,000 to grow the crop, including expenditure for preparing the land, buying fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides, besides bearing labour cost for periodic weeding. Due to lack of rain, he had to water the crop with the help of tanker lorries and it had further increased the input cos, he said, adding the outcome was not satisfactory.