Workers harvest cotton in a field on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, October 24, 2016.
Credit: Reuters File Photo
Nagpur: The Council for Protection of Farmers Rights-Kisan Bharti has sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention to direct the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) to rollback its restrictive cotton procurement rules hitting farmers in the state.
In an appeal to the PM, CPFR-Kisan Bharti President Barrister Vinod Tiwari said that the CCI’s recent move – to cap cotton procurement at only 7 quintals/acre, almost half of the earlier limit of 13 quintals/acre – has heightened the agony among lakhs of cotton farmers in Maharashtra and adjoining Telangana.
“This bizarre slash in the limit, imposed after yield surveys conducted this Kharif season, has driven farmers to sell nearly 80 percent of the produce to private traders at very low prices. This has added to the already severe distress among farmlands,” Tiwari said.
In view of the cutbacks, farmers have no options but to dispose of their cotton stocks at around Rs 6500/quintal or lower, almost 25 pc below the MSP of Rs 8110/quintal.
The worst-affected are those tillers who produce more than 5 quintas/acre who cannot sell their full yield to CCI owing to the restrictions, and hence offload it to any private buyers at extremely low rates and much below the MSP.
“Worsening the crisis is the CCI’s rigid moisture-content requirements of 8-12 pc which is difficult to maintain. In view of the fog, intermittent rains, drop in winter temperatures, natural moisture levels in the cotton remain high. Despite drying it in the open for days, farmers report moisture levels at 20 pc or higher, and their stocks are rejected outright at CCI procurement centres,” he said.
Citing examples, the CPFR-Kisan Bharti said in Yavatmal district alone, 236,752 farmers opted for cotton cultivation across 825,932 acres, yielding around 3.3 million quintals.
However, of this huge quantity, the CCI has procured barely 7,921 quintals and the private traders lapped up some 115,000 quintals at low rates – exposing the gaps between government promises vis-à-vis ground realities.
Farmers rued that the CCI’s impossible regulations are directly pushing them into the trap of private traders, who bargain hard to get the cotton stocks at cheap rates.
The CPFR-Kisan Bharti said that of the 27 procurement centres announced by CCI, barely a handful are operating, leading to long queues, increased transportation costs and logistical chaos for the already harassed farmers.
“Our demand is to increase the procurement to at least 12 quintals/acre, relax the moisture content limits to 22 pc owing to the natural hazards and open more procurement centres to quicken the process,” said Tiwari.
Since the CCI is the nodal agency for MSP procurement, it is expected to protect the farmers’ interest rather than penalizing them for things beyond their control, hence the PM must immediately direct the CCI to do the needful help the farmers before they resort to extreme measures, he urged.