Central drought team inspects scorched soybean at Demani-Wahegaon; farmers say ₹35,000 an acre spent in vain

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: With the rains failing, kharif crops such as soybean, tur, maize and cotton in the taluka have been badly hit. Against this backdrop, a central team on Friday, October 9, inspected the soybean crop in survey number 83 at Demani-Wahegaon in the Shekta revenue circle. The team examined the pods and grains, assessed the damage caused by the lack of rain and spoke to farmers.

Farmers said that despite spending on ploughing, seed, fertiliser, pesticides and labour, their crops had stopped growing and there was little hope of a harvest. Farmer Vikas Shinde said soybean had cost ₹30,000 to ₹35,000 an acre, but the crop had dried up and would not even return the cost. With fodder and water for cattle also scarce, Avinash Jadhav asked for a subsidy for each animal, or fodder delivered to farmers' cattle sheds, instead of fodder camps.

Farmers also complained that orchard growers in other circles of the taluka were receiving crop insurance benefits while those in Shekta circle had been left out, possibly because of the readings recorded by the rain gauge, and asked for an inquiry. Collector Vinay Gowda said special care would be taken to ensure orchard farmers were not denied insurance.

Muktanand Agrawal, joint secretary in the Union ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare, gathered information on the drought and said the team's report would be submitted to the central government. Sakshi Bhadoria of the animal husbandry and dairying department, Sunil Kumar Dubey, deputy director of the Mahalanobis institute, and NITI Aayog adviser Dr Jaspal Singh were present along with agriculture and revenue officials.

Shivaji Toge said farmers face drought every two years and struggle for water although the Nathsagar reservoir is close by, and called for river-linking projects. Arvind Kuber asked that compensation reflect farmers' actual costs and be paid into their accounts before Diwali. Jijarao Shinde compared the situation with the 1972 drought: there was no sowing that year but the wells had water, whereas this year farmers had sown and lost their standing crops.

Source: Esakal