Cutting across political ideologies and affiliations, turmeric farmers under the banner of Rythu Ikya Vedika are all set to launch a united agitation to achieve the demands of a minimum support price of ₹15,000 per quintal for turmeric, and establishment of turmeric board.
At a meeting at Morthad mandal headquarters in Armoor revenue division on Monday, the farmers’ representatives arrived from about 20 villages and resolved to agitate on the lines of the one they waged to achieve remunerative price for red jowar a few months ago. They also unanimously passed a resolution to begin the agitation with a day-long dharna at Ambedkar Chowrasta in Armoor on February 7.
Giving the details, All India Kisan Mazdoor Sangh (AIKMS) State secretary V. Prabhakar said that a strategy was chalked out to wage a long-term agitation to achieve the demands. He said that turmeric was cultivated in over 100 villages in the district but farmers were incurring huge losses with the absence of minimum support price.
They were getting just ₹6,000 per quintal of crop in the market when the per-acre investment was crossing ₹1.50 lakh. Supposing that the farmer got a maximum yield of 30 quintals in an acre he hardly got ₹1.80 lakh. The nine-month labour of farmers was going down the drain , he deplored.
Farmers also opposed the ₹8,000 per acre investment being given by State Government under the Rythu Bandhu and the Central Government’s recent budgetary proposal of ₹6,000 for each small farmer. Instead they appealed to the Government to purchase turmeric crop directly from farmers and implement the Swaminathan Commission recommendations.
Mr. Prabkhar said that farmers would take out a rally from Mamidipally Chowrasta before staging dharna at Ambedkar Chowrasta on February 7.