Adequate price for cotton demanded

Hyderabad, December 19:
YSR Congress has demanded the State Government to give adequate price to cotton
farmers as they are in distress and are being exploited by traders with the
Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) being unresponsive to their needs. 

“Cotton
production has increased in the State but the productivity has come down as the
input costs have increased drastically and at times it is more than cost of
yield,” YSRCP Farmers Cell Convenor MVS Nagi Reddy told reporters here on
Wednesday. 

CCI, which has
come to keep a check on middlemen, has been siding with them and ignoring the
interests of farmers, he said adding that traders are buying cheap from farmers
and selling to CCI at the Government price. 

CCI has been
discouraging farmers on one ground or the other and are forced to sell their
produce to the middlemen and during the recent past there have been dharnas at
many market yards. 

We demand the
government to come to the rescue of farmers as the cost of production has
increased drastically during the past three years and the situation is driving
the farmers into financial crisis. 

“In the present
situation the cost of production has increased to Rs 5,000 per quintal while
the MSP is Rs 3,900 and farmers are resorting to distress sale and traders are
buying for Rs 3,000 and less. YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s demand for a Rs 3,000
crore Market Stabilisation Fund will help the farmers to come out from such
pathetic situation,” he said. 

Three fourth’s
of the cotton yield comes from Telangana region and farmers are at a loss and
driven to debt , he said adding that the government has decreased the extent of
land while allocating input subsidy and the farmers are being cheated. 

The crisis arose
with the increase in the extent of land under cultivation and hike in input
cost thus bringing down the productivity. While in
Gujarat and other states cotton crops have fallen but in Andhra Pradesh it has gone up
but no proper measures are being taken to address the crisis, he said.