The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Farmers prefer selling cotton to private buyers

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Saturday, Nov 10, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Farmers prefer selling cotton to private buyers

S.Ramu

Ryots selling their produce for Rs.1,750 to Rs.2,000 a quintal

PHOTO: R. Biksham Ruther

Eager to sell: Cotton formers disposing of their produce to private agents at their doorstep at Pedda Suraram in Nalgonda district. -

NAKREKAL (NALGONDA DT): Disillusioned with the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI), farmers are selling off huge quantity of cotton to middlemen and private buyers for a cheap rate. Knowing well how to make hey while the sun shines, the market forces are buying cotton at farmers’ doorsteps in a big way.

Though the minimum support price (MSP) is fixed at Rs.2,050, farmers are selling their produce somewhere between Rs.1,750 to Rs.2,000 per quintal to the middlemen at many villages. “I don’t know how much rate they will fix for my cotton at the Nakrekal market, I am selling it for Rs.1,880 per quintal to a private buyer,” a farmer of Aarlagaddagudem in Nakrekal mandal told The Hindu.

A number of lorries have been making trips to remote villages to procure cotton for the last three weeks. However, no effort is being made to operate CCI purchase centres at Mallepally, Tirumalagiri and Nakrekal. Farmers raised cotton in more than 1.5 lakh acres and they reaped 7-9 quintals per acre in many areas, sources said. About 10 quintals of cotton is produced every year in the district.

Delay in payment

Asked why he prefers to sell his produce to the private buyers instead of selling at the CCI counter at Nakrekal, Madhusudan Reddy, another farmer, said: “They don’t give us good rate and they make inordinate delay in making the payment. We can avoid transportation charges too, if we sell them to the private buyers, who are coming to our doorsteps.”

The CCI procured 2.79 lakh quintals of cotton in 2004-05 but it came down to 33,000 quintals the following year at the Nakrekal marketyard.

The CCI opened its counter at Nakrekal on November 13, 2006, and could procure 54,000 quintals. “Though the centre is very much in operation in this season, no farmer is coming here to sell their produce,” Ch. Appa Rao, secretary of the market yard, said.

It is learnt that farmers are not going to the CCI centre as the officials take too much time to make the payment. “While the CCI takes one to two months to pay for our produce, the private buyers settle our account within a week or two,” Krishna Reddy, a farmer, maintains.

The Ryothu Sangham has taken serious exception to the delay in opening the CCI centres in the district. “Farmers are at the mercy of private parties since the government machinery has failed to come to their rescue at this critical juncture. Officials have failed to encourage the ryots to approach the CCI centres,” the Sangham’s district president and former MLA Nandhyala Narasimha Reddy says.

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