According to farmers, they were skeptical to cultivate peanuts during the usual season that commenced in the month of January as there was heavy rainfall in the region. However, after the monsoon, they started to cultivate in an area around 60,000 ha across region which was 10 per cent more than the previous season. Several farmers have cultivated the crop as a ‘manavari’ cultivation in the districts like Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Pudukkottai.

Meanwhile, the harvest commenced in the region from March and is expected to be complete by April end but farmers have started to face hardships including lower pricing for the crops in addition to low yield this time. “Usually we yield upto 12 bags with 80 kg each in every acre but this time, we could get only six bags. That means, we got only 500 kg yield in each acre against usual 1600 kg”, said VK Chinnadurai, Thiruvonam Taluk farmers association secretary.

Farmers suspect that traders only fixed the procurement price and so they could get only between Rs 60 and 70 per kg. “Since there is no profitable price, most of them piled up the produce in their homes waiting for fair pricing. We appeal to the government to intervene and fix fair price for the product,” said Chinnadurai.