Farmers led by YSR Congress Party farmers wing Prakasam district president Mareddy Subba Reddy staged a demonstration in front of the Tobacco Board regional office here on Tuesday in protest against lacklustre market for the export-oriented crop.
Crop holiday sought
Leading the protest, Mr. Subba Reddy said the lockdown which coincided with the marketing season of the principal winter crop in the district had led to piling up of stocks with the farmers. Though the auctions were restarted on a low key after a gap of about 40 days in the auction platforms coming under green zone, the market remained sluggish due to poor participation by traders, he said. Farmers in the auction platforms coming under red zone had to wait for a longer time for the e-auctions to recommence.
The restive farmers raised slogans demanding crop holiday during the next cropping season if the Tobacco Board which fixed the crop size is not in a position to come to their aid to market the produce.
They were able to market only about 2.38 million kg of the produce at an average price of ₹155 per kg so far as against the estimated production of about 85 to 90 million kg in the traditional tobacco growing areas, they said.
The crop quality deteriorated due to prolonged auctions during summer leading to reduction in the offer price for bright grade variety of crop by about ₹20 per kg. In this situation, the farmers would be forced to incur a loss of ₹3 lakh per tobacco barn this year, they feared. The rejection rate was also a high of 15%. They demanded interest waiver, five-year moratorium and soft loan for fresh working capital to cope with the coronoavirus-induced crisis.
Meanwhile, Tobacco Board Chairman Y.Raghunatha Babu tried to allay the fears of farmers saying that the board would do all that was necessary to liquidate their stocks.
