Scores of subabul and eucalyptus farmers are bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 impact as the coronavirus-induced lockdown has aggravated the labour shortage in the prime harvesting season of the pulpwood plantation crop.
Many farmers are spending anxious moments worried over the economic fallout of the delay in harvesting their matured subabul and eucalyptus crops owing to the non-availability of labour. There are an estimated 12,000 subabul and eucalyptus farmers in the district.
The pulpwood tree plantations were raised on a little over 1.10 lakh acres in the erstwhile Khammam district.
The pulpwood plantations are mainly spread in Bonakal, Madhira, Yerrupalem, and Enkoor mandals in the district.
Many small and medium farmers had taken up subabul and eucalyptus plantations several years ago mostly encouraged by social forestry initiatives of the ITC Paperboards & Specialty Papers Division unit at Sarapaka near Bhadrachalam, now in Bhadradri-Kothagudem district.
At the beginning of the main harvesting season last month, the exodus of labourers from Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh started following the second wave of the pandemic.
Before the announcement of lockdown, many labourers from other States had returned to their homes.
“We are grappling with acute shortage of labour in the midst of the harvesting season and any delay in harvesting the plantations (three years and above age) will cost us dearly,” said V Srinivas, a subabul grower of Bonakal mandal.
“We mostly depend on labour from Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh for harvesting the plantation crop,” Mr Srinivas, who is president of the Telangana Subabul and Eucalyptus Farmers' Committee said, adding that they were anxiously waiting for the pandemic situation to end and return of the migrant workers to resume harvesting of the crop.
“Though the ITC paper mill at Bhadrachalam increased the price of the pulpwood from ₹5,200 to ₹5,500 per tonne recently, we are unable to harvest our pulpwood in time,” said another subabul farmer from Yerrupalem.
