Lack of minimum support price (MSP), high cost of labour and non availability of good farm mechanisation tools continue to add to the woes of the farmers cultivating turmeric in Nizamabad district in Andhra Pradesh. The impact is so much that over the past three years, there has been a considerable decline in the total area under cultivation of turmeric and the overall production in the district. Nizamabad is the largest turmeric producing district in the state and it accounts for nearly 40% of the overall production of turmeric in the country.
The overall area under turmeric cultivation has been declining every year right from 2005-06.
It dropped from 11,959 hectare in 2005-06 to 9,829 hectare in 2006-07 and to 7,377 hectare in 2007-08. Similarly, there has been a drop in the overall production from the district from 53,815 tonne in 2005-06 to 49,145 tonne in 2006-07 and to 29,508 tonne in 2007-08.
According to officials, the farmers have been asking for MSP for quite sometime but it is yet to be brought in. When farmers in the neighbouring turmeric growing states such as Maharashtra get about Rs 4,000 per quintal, farmers here get only Rs 3,300 per quintal. Another drawback for the farmers is that there is no testing facility to quantify the ?Curcumin? content in turmeric. ?Curcumin? is one of the primary ingredients in turmeric that gives the bright yellow colour to it. And, normally turmeric with high `Curcumin’ content fetches good price.
The cost of labour has gone up substantially. As against Rs 60-70 per day, labourers are now demanding over Rs 100 per day. The working hours have also come down from 6-8 hours per day to 3-4 hours per day. Also, the increasing cost of cultivation including labour and other inputs and lesser realisation from the market, has forced many farmers to switch over to other crops like paddy, soyabean and sunflower.