The Hindu : Drumstick farmers in a bind

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 25, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

Drumstick farmers in a bind

By Our Staff Reporter

KARUR MAY 24 . The drumstick farmers of Aravakurichi area in Karur district are in a bind. They are at the mercy of the dealers and traders who buy the produce for a pittance. Hence, their long time demand for a drumstick powder factory in the region has resurfaced.

The Aravakurichi-Pallappatti belt, though coming under the delta of the Amaravathy river, which itself sports a dry bed for better part of the year, is weighed down with vast barren stretches not conducive for conventional agriculture.

Bicycles, mopeds, trucks and tractors loaded with bundles of drumstick are no strange sight in this belt. Their daily trip to the shandies makes this region vie with the Oddanchatram area to claim the status of the drumstick bowl of Tamil Nadu.

Though arrival of drumstick at the shandies is low now with the prime season over, they do not fetch remunerative price.

As a bundle of 40 or 50 drumsticks fetches only Rs. 15 or so, the returns hardly match with the investment and labour, says S. Jayamani, a drumstick farmer from the nearby Nagampalli Venkatapuram village.

About 4,000 acres are under drumstick cultivation in the Aravakurichi region and daily about five to seven lorry loads of drumstick make their way to places as far as Vijayawada, Bangalore, Chennai and Kumbakonam.

But farmers deplore that the Chennai traders are increasingly preferring to buy drumstick from some areas in Andhra Pradesh affecting sale of their produce, according to K.R.K. Kuppusamy, who has been in the trade for over 40 years.

There was a plan to set up a drumstick powder factory in the Aravakurichi belt but it is gathering dust now.

At a time when the State Government is giving a thrust to food processing industry, establishment of a drumstick powder factory would be a boon to them, say the farmers here.

Apart from generating foreign exchange through exports, the factory could help farmers overcome price fluctuations and help them escape the stranglehold of traders and middlemen.

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