Farmers in Mysuru district will be dissuaded against cultivating ginger and encouraged to shift to horticultural crops or sericulture.
This is consequent to the crash in ginger price due to glut in production besides the realisation among the authorities of the environmental impact of ginger cultivation. The production entails heavy usage of chemical fertilizers and pesticides which reduces the yield and fertility of the soil.
Ginger is generally cultivated on a contract basis by farmers with deep pockets from Kerala on leased land in Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, Shivamogga and other places.
But over the last few years local farmers who saw the economic remuneration reaped by contractors from Kerala, sniffed an opportunity in ginger production and also entered the fray.
As a result, the area under ginger cultivation increased and production went up resulting in a price crash. “While a 60 kg bag of ginger used to cost around ₹4,000 to ₹5,000 two years ago, it has plummeted to ₹400 at present,” said Vivek Cariappa, a farmer from HD Kote belt.
The issue also came up during a review meeting of various departments in the district conducted by the Mysuru MP Pratap Simha here recently. He said the application of pesticide was high and the local farmers were not only in dire straits due to the price crash but the land fertility and yield had also taken a hit.
The Agriculture Department was urged to conduct a series of awareness drives to goad farmers to shift to horticulture and sericulture. Mr. Simha said that efforts were being made to provide a local market for cotton cultivators by seeking a textile park in the region so that local cotton cultivators could have access to market.
Mr. Cariappa said HD Kote belt was traditionally a cotton area but in the last few years there was a shift towards ginger. While ginger prices have crashed leaving the farmers in the lurch, cotton prices have skyrocketed due to lack of production, he added.
The issue of the local farmers getting trapped in the vortex of market forces has led to a renewal of demand for local planning of agriculture. “The need of the hour is to have district-level agricultural plans so that the farmers can avoid the pitfalls of glut in production of one crop,” said Mr. Cariappa.
There are also concerns that the chemicals and pesticides used for ginger production will impact the groundwater quality besides polluting the river through the seepage from the fields which enters the river in the downstream.
Krisnaprasad of Sahaja Samruddha, an organisation propagating organic and natural farming, said the run-off from fields enters the waterbodies in the downstream area and contaminates the ecosystem which is fraught with danger in the long term.