ADILABAD: Soyabean farmers are a worried lot as the colour of their crop has been changing to black after being hit by heavy rains in the last couple of days. They are worried as they might not get a good price for the damaged produce. Though the ryots used several acres of land this monsoon to grow soyabean, the seeds did not germinate in most mandals as they were of bad quality. Many ryots even staged protests in front of the agriculture office claiming that the officials replaced good quality seeds with inferior ones.
October is the time when the crop gets ready for harvest, but excessive rains have damaged the crop this year. According to officials, record soyabean was cultivated this year and that too in more than 1.90 lakh acres in Nirmal and Adilabad districts. Compared to last year the area under cultivation was increased as maize cultivation was completely stopped. In general, the district receives the south-west monsoon from June to September. However, this time the weather was unusual and a second spell of rains damaged standing crops.
Primary Agriculture Cooperative Society (PACS) director B Goverdhan Reddy submitted a memorandum to Joint Collector Sandhaya Rani requesting her to purchase soyabean by providing MSP to the farmers.
The government has declared `3,880 per quintal MSP for soyabean. Not just soyabean farmers, even those who grew cotton during this season have also been badly affected due to the excessive rains.