Many farmers in the district had migrated from the dominant groundnut crop to dryland horticulture practices and reaped good dividends in the last decade with a number of large companies like Big Basket, Reliance, Future Group, Desai Fruits and INI sourcing fresh fruits and vegetables from them.
The companies use the produce for either export or sale through a chain of their retail shops in the country. But of late, the honeymoon seems to have come to an end with the companies dictating terms on the variety and extent of the crop to be sown, which has been drastically changing the cropping patterns.
Profit margins of farmers have come down as they have lost the option to choose the crop and the decisions are no more based on the suitability of the soils or areas based on the studies in the agriculture research stations. The market dynamics of these companies have been determining the total cropped area, the villages where they should be grown and the price at which the farmers should sell.
Not all companies have their own staff to monitor all the operations and they just decide the type of crop a farmer needs to grow and then allow a local middleman to do the rest on their behalf.
At an interactive session of leaders from the Rythu Coolie Sangham and the A.P. Rythu Sangham, University of Hyderabad Sociology Professor N. Purendra Prasad expressed his dismay at the way the middlemen were controlling the crop area, the variety and the price a farmer would get by handing over the final produce at the village collection centres.
“While on paper and in the contract the companies promise a good price, at the end of the harvest season, the farmer gets the promised price only for a small quantity of his crop. For the rest (lower grade), he has to depend on the local businessmen to bail them out, which has been seen in the case of bananas, tomatoes, onions (in Kurnool), mango, sweet lime, curry leaves and pomegranate,” said Mr. Purendra.
