KURNOOL: Onion farmers in Kurnool had been expecting bumper returns like in the last season, but their hopes have come crashing down, as markets in the district are shut due to the pandemic. Several farmers have left their crop in the fields, as they are not confident of recovering the costs they would incur in harvesting and transporting the produce to faraway markets.
The Kurnool market yard was shut after some traders there tested positive for coronavirus. “Shifting the onions to far-off urban markets would be a waste as the traders there are not offering good prices,” said Hanumantha Reddy, a farmer from Yerrakota village in Yammiganur Assembly constituency, adding that he has crop on three acres that he doesn’t plan to harvest.“If we take the produce to the market for direct sale, the traders only offer between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, depending on the quality, which is not remunerative for us,” he said.
Farmers usually grow onion in May, but this time, they cultivated it on at least 5,000 acres in April itself as there was no other work due to the lockdown, and they were lured by last year’s good prices.“At least 95 per cent of my crop has been harvested and prepared for transport. Most of the rest has also been harvested,” said J Ashok Kumar, of Gokulapadu village in the district, who took two acres of land on lease to cultivate onion.
Kumar said the crop will get spoiled if it is not harvested or taken to the market yard at the right time, and added that he spent about Rs 35,000 per acre so far on leasing the land, buying onion saplings, transplantation, fertilisers and engaging farm hands to remove weeds. Besides this, he would have to spend about Rs 13,000 for harvesting, trimming, transporting, loading and unloading, and other expenses.
“I have decided to leave the crop on the field as spending Rs 13,000 more would not be beneficial. Only if I get at least Rs 2,000 per quintal like last year will I be able to afford to try to sell the crop. But the situation now is different,” he rued.Adding to the worries of the farmers, the recent rains damaged onion crop on at least 2,500 acres, including the recently-cultivated crop for the Kharif season in the district. Kurnool agriculture market yard secretary R Jaya Lakshmi said they closed market yard 10 days ago.
“Some of our staff and traders contracted Covid-19 recently,” she explained, and added that they plan to hold discussions with traders on resuming work. A meeting is likely to be held on Thursday. Horticulture department assistant director B Raghunath Reddy said onions were cultivated on nearly 5,000 acres.
“But farmers have been facing problems in transportation and finding markets to sell the produce,” he added. The only possibility is for them to sell the onions at the Tadepalligudem market for Rs 500-700 per quintal, but market is open only three days a week, he said. However, it is tough to transport the crop from Kurnool amid the pandemic, and with the low rates, the farmers would suffer losses, he added.