Gujarat elections: Saurashtra farmers ask if 10 hour daytime power supply will continue after polling
Complain of rising input costs and irregular power supply, but also report good yields and prices for groundnut and cotton crops in poll season
The 45-year-old farmer from Vijaynagar village in Tankara taluka of Morbi district, who has no formal education, seems neither too happy nor unhappy by the outcome. “One gets what is written in one’s destiny,” he philosophises.
His total crop this year was double that of last year, when his groundnut was infested by white grub pests that eat roots of plants. The price he got this year is also higher than the Rs 4,500/quintal he had got last year, though it’s Rs 425 lower than the Rs 5,850 that was announced as the minimum support price (MSP) by the Central government this year. Gadhiya says he doesn’t sell his produce to the government as generally, it takes a couple of weeks to get paid via bank transfer, at a time when he needs cash to pay his labourers, and to buy seeds and fertilisers for sowing winter crops. Instead, he prefers to sell at the APMC, where he is paid hard cash, instantly.
Gadhiya has also taken on lease an additional 1.5 hectares to grow cotton. A few days ago, he sold 22 quintals of cotton, harvested during first picking, at Rs 9,000 per quintal, substantially higher than the MSP of Rs 6,080 for the medium staple variety he had grown this year.
“Prices are so-so. A farmer will never be happy about the price he gets for his produce,” he says.
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