KALPETTA: Until a few months ago, ginger was a perfect prescription for prosperity for the agri-folk in Wayanad. The other crops had failed to deliver and the recurring losses had bogged them down. The future lay in ginger and ginger alone, so they believed...
However, the farmers were ill-prepared for a nightmare. Ginger prices plummeted steeply. The crop, which they thought would fetch them gold, eventually cost some of them their lives.
Huge profit from a single crop was what prompted farmers to undertake ginger farming. Thousands, mainly from Bathery, Kalpetta and Mananthavadi, have invested Rs 50,000 to several lakhs in ginger cultivation this year in Karnataka and in some parts of Goa taking money from private financiers at high interest rates.
While some are doing the business on their own, others are engaged in partnerships and they are suffering the most.
Ilavukunnu Ashokan of Pulpally, one among the three farmers who committed suicide, had done ginger farming in Kudaku on a partnership basis. Apart from the decline in prices, a major portion of his crop got damaged due to a disease. P S Varghese, the other deceased farmer from Thrikkaipatta near Kalpetta, had cultivated an acre in Chikmagalore
with ginger but had to abandon it following fall in prices.
C P Sasidharan, the third farmer, who had leased 1.7 acres in Mothakkara more than 30 km from Kalpetta, shared the same tale. Farmers had bought ginger seeds at a cost ranging from Rs 2,000 per sack (60 kg) to Rs 2,500. “For farming in an acre of land, it requires around 30 sacks of seed. The majority of them took land for lease in Karnataka for an amount of Rs 35,000 per acre (lease amount ranges between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000 in Wayanad).
Almost the same amount has to be paid additionally if the land had a borewell. Altogether, a farmer invested an amount between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh along with the labour charges for doing cultivation in an acre in parts of Karnataka this season,” says Dileep Raj of Bathery, who has been doing ginger cultivation in Karnataka for the past five years.
This year he did farming on an acre of land at Hasan. Usually, one acre will have a yield of more than 375 sacks of ginger and farmers expect the same price for each sack at which they had bought the seeds, that is between Rs 2,000 and Rs 2,500 per sack. Now, one sack of ginger costs Rs 500 in Karnataka and Rs 400 in Wayanad which means they will only get less than Rs 1.4 lakh. Of this, one third will go as labour cost for harvesting. The wages for a labourer is Rs 400 a day in which he will make three sacks of ginger ready for supply.
In short, the farmer’s return from the venture will be less than Rs 75,000, which is only one-fourth of their investment.
“Largescale farmers can overcome this situation as they usually have income from other crops but those like Ashokan who invested everything in it have no option to recover from the crisis. They are dejected, doomed and disappointed as their expectations were very high. They ventured into ginger farming, borrowing money and taking gold loans. Now, they have not enough money to do further farming and should have to repay the debts. They are, in fact, between the devil and the deep sea,” says dairy farmer Benny of Thrikkaippetta near Kalpetta, who has been doing ginger farming in Karnataka as a side business for some years now.
