No labour, no buyers force Karnataka farmers to take extreme steps

Unable to sell the produce due to the extended lockdown, a farmer reportedly ended his life on April 15 in Mandya, Karnataka.

60-year-old, Ramagowda used to cultivate tomatoes and beans in his one-acre land and had taken a loan of ₹ one lakh and ₹4 lakh each from Pandavapura PLD Bank and Kaveri Grameen Bank.

According to Prajavani, a Kannada daily, after the incident, revenue officials visited Ramagowda’s family and announced compensation for them, they did not however, say anything on waiving off the farm loans.

In the wake of lockdown extension, along with migrant labourers, farmers are also the receiving end with no buyers and workers to harvest the matured crops.

Taking the harvest to the markets has also become difficult for them with police brutality, and even if they manage to reach the market, steep price crash mars the purpose.

Related news: No crops if lockdown extended: Karnataka farmers wary of distress

“The price of 1kg tomatoes was ₹25 around this time in the wholesale market recently. Now [due ti lockdown] the price has come down ₹6-8. Beans were sold for more than ₹100, its price has crashed by two-third now,” Jagadeesh, a farmer in Hosakote, Bangalore rural said.

The farmers demand that they at least get back the money invested on existing crops, if not make profits.

Even though the government assured that essential supplies movement will not be affected, at several places, farmer unions have complained of police brutality.

Owing to the difficulties at hand, several farmers have decided to not sow the next crop.

Not just for vegetable crops, in Mysore, Mandya, Chamarajnagar, farmers who sow crops such as groundnut, ragi, green gram, and mustard during April-May are mulling not to sow this season.

For Karnataka farmers, this comes as a double whammy, as the state witnessed severe and protracted drought for three consecutive years since 2015 with Mandya recording a number of farmers’ deaths.

Between April 2013 and November 2017, as many as 3,515 farmers in the state committed suicide. Of this, 2,525 were due to drought and farm failure, as per the State Agriculture Department data.