It is almost the end of the avarekai season, but the city’s favourite winter bean is still in short supply.

Avarekai usually floods the markets between November and January (till Sankranti). However, traders said supply of the beans is down by nearly 60% of the average during the previous years. “This has kept the price high — in the range of ₹40 ₹50 a kg — though by this time of the year the price would have fallen to less than ₹15 a kg,” a procurer of a leading retail chain said.

Severe drought in most avarekai growing areas in south Karnataka adversely impacted the yield this season, said officials in the Agriculture Department. “Usually, the target set for avarekai cultivation is 74,000 hectares of land, which is arrived at following the sowing trends over the previous years. This season, however, avarekai was sown only in 44,000 hectares. Last year, avarekai was sown in 61,000 hectares (82%),” said a senior agriculture official. First, the avarekai acerage was low this season and then yield was adversely impacted by lack of adequate rain, the official said.

Sowing of avarekai — a quarterly crop — starts in the last week of August or the first week of September, and harvest of the best beans (aromatic ones) that require the dew happens in December. “Most farmers sow in August last week or after the rains in September. But this season there was a severe deficiency of rainfall in August, September, and October. This led to many farmers not sowing at all and even those who did cultivate are hit as the yield has been adversely affected,” the official said.

Chennathimmaiah, a leading avarekai farmer from Magadi and one of the main suppliers of the beans for the annual ‘avare mela’ in the city, did not sow the bean this season. “The taluk is drought-hit and borewells have been dried up. There was no rain in the sowing season. I have suffered losses with avarekai over the last two years and hence did not sow this year. I have not cultivated anything this season and the land has gone un-tilled,” he said.