Is there NO end?

By B Jayakishore

This time not only the government, but also the nature has played wild game with our farmers. The Rain which created mayhem all over the state recently,set our farmers in turmoil once again.

According to media reports, it has been estimated that as much as worth Rs.4000crores of loss has occured in the state due to rain havoc in the last three months. Out of which worth Rs.3000 crores of crop simply washed away with floods. As much as 1142 villages belonging to Dakshina Kannada, Uttara Kannada,Shimogga, Belagam, Haveri, Davanagere, Bagalkot, Kodagu have been affected by raging floods or strong wind which bufetted over all these villages.

'I think this time almost 80 percent of my yield has been washed away with rain. Add to this heavy wind which bufetted over my arecanut farm has claimed most of the young and yielding trees in my farm' said Shanker Bhat, an arecanut grower in Guththigar, near sullia,DK over phone.

President, All india Arecanut growers association, Mr.Srinivas Acharya says: 'This year rain was mercyless over farmers. Due to heavy rain which lashed all over DK, UK last month without any 'Stop' in between, the cases of 'Kole roga' (A fungal disease, which causes premature fall of ripe arecanuts; Normally un interrupted rain accelarates the growth of fungi, if proper measures like spraying bordo mixture is not been done on time. However, rain god should permit to do this! This time he didn't!) has become rampant all over, which will result in almost 50 percent of fall in crop this year'

Not only in DakshinaKannada, situation is even worse in other districts like shimogga, Uttarakannada etc. Normally an acre of fertile land accomodates about 500 arecanut plantations. Shockingly, In one of my friends farm, near Kollur, wind has swallowed as much as 80 trees within a minute!

Miseries doesn't ends there. As crumbling prices of arecanut has fuelled it further. Model supari(Iam giving accounts of only chaali arecanut being grown in DK) which was getting around Rs.80-85 per Kg till recently; Now has fallen down to Rs.60-70! Market sources say this may come down much lower in coming days.

According to Campco president S.R.Rangamurthy,'We have urged Central government to curb the import of arecanut from other countries. But still tonnes of arecanut has been imported to the country by illegal means'
Kolkotta port is being used by both India and Nepal. This has become a great boon to traders involved in unauthorised import of arecanut. As central Government already imposed 100 percent duty on imported arecanut, traders opted a different route.They import the arecanut from srilanka,Indonasia and such other countries where the produce is available dam cheap, with a 'TAG' of "To Nepal'.

But as Kolkatta port is comman for both India and Nepal, they unload it there and circulate it into indian markets by evading all taxes, customs formalities. What a clever way they adopted right? Because of which more and more foreign arecanut is flooding indian market resulting in slump in prices of indain grown produce.

'Campco has even urged central agricultural minister Sharad pawar to pass an order such that, any arecanut goods that are imported, has to be allowed to enter india only through Mangalore port. Also to appoint campco as a Quality checking agency to check for such imported goods as more often these are of very poor in quality, compared to local produce' says Rangamurthy.

'This has resulted in adulteration of indian grown arecanuts by mixing imported arecanuts, due to which image of the indian arecanut has come down in global markets. Also end users prefer these adulterated goods as they available cheap than indian goods' he adds.

However,'Even central government has agreed to our demand and also it has passed an order in this regard. But traders have filed a pettition against it in Kolkatta HC recently and suceeded in bringing stay on it. This was a big set back to us and once again we are not in a position to have a controll over crumbling domestic arecanut market' says Rangamurthy.

This may be the plight of an arecanut farmer. But In some or the other form every farmer in this country is facing hardships in one or the other way.May be in the form of natural calamities, Unsupportive government, Anti-farmer policies or uncontrolled Market fluctuations...which all lead our farmers into a 'In secure Zone'. We may vote ;Discuss; Debate over agrarian crisis in media. But the turmoil our farming community undergoing is still rampant and perhaps, will continue in future it seems.

Magasaysay award winning journalist P.Sainath rightly puts it in his recent article: 'Sixty years have passed after we become independent. Still rural india is a shambles. The most severe agrarian crisis since the eve of the Green revolution rages on. We fail to invoke even those measures the blatantly unfair WTO allows us; this means the prices our own farmers get for their products collapses by the season'

I ask, Is there NO end to farmers plight in this Country? Are you listening Mr.Manmohan singh?Mr.Pawar? Mr.Kumaraswamy?

Last week appa, who never calls unless there is any urgency, called me and said: 'Kishora, It's becoming very difficult for me to look after farm. So,I've decided to sell it off. What do you say?'

Well, what can I say? I've already fought many times with appa against selling farm, my place, my home where I've grown up, have my trees, my birds, my parrots, sang gange baare gowri baare...

But this time I didn't have any answer with me. I don't know why? I just disconnected the phone without any utter. Since then appa never called me till this day.