ANANTAPUR/VIJAYAWADA: Groundnut farmers in Anantapur district are now facing a perplexing situation. Usually they wait for the rain to start sowing, but now they are waiting for the rain to stop. Groundnut sowing in the district has been delayed due to heavy rains.
Against the normal area covered under groundnut sowing as on date, which is 4,67,434 hectares, only 1,76,843 hectares have been covered now, far less than the previous Kharif. At a few places, where groundnut is normally cultivated in large areas of land by this time, the sowing was far less than normal. In Kambadur mandal, only six per cent of sowing was completed, while it was nine per cent in Somandepalli, 11 per cent in Kupair, 13 per cent in Nallamada and 16 per cent in Puttaparthi.
District agriculture department officials said the spread of rainfall in the district was not uniform and some places did not receive rains while some parts received excess. Due to excess moisture content in the soil, the sowing is at a slow pace, said Ramakrishna, joint director of agriculture (Anantapur).
“Rain puts us in an untenable situation. The moisture in soil is still high and we are in a dilemma regarding cultivation of groundnut. I decided to go for short-term crops this year and skip groundnut altogether,” said P Venaktaramudu, a farmer from Narapala village of the same mandal. Similar opinions are being expressed by several groundnut farmers in the district.
Agriculture experts, who have been monitoring the situation, said there is another reason for increasing reluctance of Anantapur farmers to cultivate groundnut this year: increasing cost of cultivation and scarcity of agricultural labourers.
“Besides, heavy rains bring with them the problem of weeds and clearing them is an additional burden for the farmers. Last Kharif, groundnut cultivators in the district faced a serious problem due to heavy rains — low yield. As such a situation was not categorised as a problem for getting either input subsidy or insurance coverage, thousands of farmers in the district have suffered losses. In view of such problems, most of them are reluctant,” explained an agriculture expert, not wishing to be named.
It has been observed that farmers, who normally go for groundnut, are increasingly preferring cultivation of red gram, millets, castor and other oil seeds. Some have even diverted to cotton, chillies, sugarcane, turmeric and onion.
“It is too early to say that extent of groundnut crop would decrease as the cut off period of sowing the crop is early weeks of September,” said MVS Nagi Reddy, vice-chairman of Andhra Pradesh State Agriculture Mission. Experts say it is hard for the district to achieve the target and there might be a drop of around 30% in the area if rain continues.