Farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana could be heading for a major crisis as the nationwide lockdown to restrain the spread of coronavirus has affected the harvest of this season’s crops. Though agriculture is exempted from the lockdown in both the states, a majority of farmers are scared to come out of their homes. Shortages of agricultural labourers has added to their woes.
The lockdown, from March 24 until at least May 17, has dealt a blow to the agricultural sector at a time when crops like paddy, maize, red jowar, chillies, tomato and horticulture products like banana, watermelon, musk melon, sweet lime, grapes, pomegranate and papaya are ready to be harvested.
With the agricultural markets shut, state governments have told farmers not to come to the towns with their produce but wait in their respective villages for procurement by authorities. With no hopes of an early return to normalcy, the farmers are keeping their fingers crossed despite assurance by the governments that all their produce would be procured.
While exempting agricultural activities from the lockdown restrictions, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy said farmers would be allowed to complete the harvesting of the crops. However, non-availability of agriculture labourers has hit the farmers hard. Many labourers have gone back to their native States due to the lockdown and those available are demanding higher wages, complained many farmers.
There is a great demand for agriculture labor, but "no one is coming out due to lockdown." There is no transportation facility to lift labourers from nearby villages. Banana planted in 4,000 hectares and sweet lemon harvested in 600 hectares got damaged. The horticulture crops have also taken a huge hit by the lockdown.
With transport coming to a complete halt, farmers are unable to take vegetables and fruits to the markets in town. Banana, sweet lemon, watermelon, tomato and chilli farmers in Andhra Pradesh too are badly affected by the situation. There are no cold storage units to store bananas. If there is a delay of one week, the entire crop goes waste. There are no buyers. We may a see a situation where farmers will dump bananas like what we have seen with onions and tomatoes on many occasions in the past.
