by Karthik Madhavan, The Hindu
Banana farmer M. Thangaraj of Sirumugai was joyous. He was ready to harvest the bananas in a few days. But the squall of September 4 changed all that. “It lasted only a few minutes and came at a time when the buyer was in my farm,” he says.
Mr. Thangaraj is not alone. There are hundreds of farmers like him who suffered crop damage in Sirumugai, Thekkampatty, Jadayampalayam and other villages in the Mettupalayam taluk, thanks to untimely rain.
According to official figures, 96 farmers have suffered crop loss.
(The State government takes into account only those farmers who have lost at least 50 per cent trees on an acre – that is roughly 550 trees or more).
The farmers in the area invest between Rs. 1.21 lakh (USD 1800) and Rs. 1.37 lakh (USD 2000) to raise an acre of banana but the State government gives only Rs. 7,500 (USD 115) in compensation. And, only for those who have lost 50 per cent or more, clarifies M. Viswanathan, another banana farmer.
The farmers cultivate ‘nenthran’, ‘kathali’, ‘robusta’ or ‘sevvazhi’ varieties serving markets in Kerala, Karnataka, a few parts of the Andhra Pradesh and also Coimbatore and Tirupur. They get Rs. 26 (USD 0.50) for a kg of ‘nenthran’, Rs. 35 (USD 0.50) for a kg of ‘kathali’, Rs. 5 – 10 (USD 0.08-0.16) for a kg of ‘robusta’ and Rs. 25 – 30 (USD 0.38-0.76) for a kg of ‘sevvazhi’.
The unseasonal squall caught the farmers off-guard, says Mr. Viswanathan.
To cushion the loss from such unforeseen happenings the farmers can opt for crop insurance which they did, says Mr. Thangaraj.
“But we gave up because we did not stand to gain. Filing claims became difficult and getting money even more so, for the rule says that for farmers to get compensation, all farmers in a particular firka (a revision sub-division) should have suffered losses.”
Source: The Hindu