Udupi: Low Price, Unseasonal Rains, Dishearten Paddy Farmers

Suvarna Brahmavar
Daijiworld Media Network—Udupi (RD/CN)

Udupi, Nov 7: No sooner is it afternoon when rain begins to lash accompanied by thunder and lightning.  Although one goes around the village to hire labourers, no one is in sight.  Wild animals rampage the crops day and night. 

In such a situation, if one takes the stock of paddy left to sell in the market, it hardly amounts to anything. 

This is a reality that a majority of paddy cultivators are facing in the coastal district.  Despite the overheads in paddy cultivation increasing every year, paddy price has been skydiving.  Cultivators are in a dilemma as they are not able to use farming machinery owing to their owning only patches of farms, farms located on uneven surfaces, and inability to get farmhands readily and dependency on indigenous irrigation sources.
 
The time has passed when farmers were leveling hillocks to grow paddy and the same fields were left barren and which have now grown lush with weed and wild vegetation.

Paddy farming has become unprofitable due to rising labour costs, related expenses, and the menace of wild animals.  

Reasons to Abandon Farming:

Barren fields are being found across the district. As per paddy cultivator Dayanand Shetty of Kenjoor village, the total overhead involved in growing paddy on an acre is Rs 18,575.

Tilling cost Rs 4,500, trimming the edges of paddy fields costs Rs 750, cow dung (150 baskets) Rs 3,300, planting saplings (20 women laborers) Rs 2,600, clearing weeds Rs 650, chemical fertilizers Rs 650, seedlings Rs 375, growing saplings Rs 750, and harvesting crop Rs 5,000.  Total expenses come to Rs 18,875, while the total earning is Rs 14,400!
At the prevailing rate, paddy fetches Rs 800 per 100 kgs.  If one grows 1,800 kgs of paddy, it would fetch Rs 14,400.

Mechanized farming is not feasible due to patches of farmlands that are located on  high terrain in a few regions across the district, while the farmer has to make optimum use of human resources in farming.  Accordingly, if one is calculative in counting the costs in paddy cultivation, he will likely burn his fingers.

According to farmer K Satyanarayan Udupa of Koodli, near Barkoor, he has suffered a loss of Rs 7,000 after deducting all sundry overheads in paddy cultivation on 7 acres of farmland that he owns.

“The price of paddy has faced more setbacks this year than in the past.  A kilo of paddy fetches Rs 800 or even less this year, than the prevailing rate of Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,100 in the last year,” said Satyanarayan Udupa. 

 “Untimely rains during the paddy harvest season have posed setbacks to paddy storage.  The paddy cultivator faces desperation as he is not able to get his harvested paddy from the fields to his barns, as the paddy rots in rain-water in the field,” said Sharat and Manoj Kumar, farmers from Matpady, in desperation.