High soya seeds rates bury farmers’ sowing plans

NAGPUR: As farmers wait to start sowing operations for the Kharif season, inflation has already started taking its toll.
Rates of soyabean seeds — the second major crop of Vidarbha after cotton — have gone up by Rs800 kg a bag.
Farmers say there is shortage of fertilisers too. Based on predictions of early monsoon, farmers who had already begun preparations for sowing by clearing the fields are now waiting for it to pour.
This is the second year in a row when rates of soyabean seeds have seen a major hike. In 2021 the prices had crossed Rs3,000 a bag, from Rs2,200 earlier.
Last year the prices settled at Rs3,200 for a bag of 30 kg, which is over Rs4,000 now, say farmers and dealers.
Soyabean seeds are supplied by Mahabeej, a state government undertaking, as well as private producers.
Seeds have to be certified by labs including that of state’s agriculture department. This year as much as 68% of the seeds by Mahabeej have been declared unfit by the certifying labs. This has reduced the supply substantially which can be one of the reasons for increase in seed rates, say sources.
One acre of land needs around one bag of seeds for soyabean cultivation.
Vallabh Deshmukh a director of Mahabeej from Buldhana said the seeds are declared unfit because of damages due to rains. However, the quantum of private producers’ seeds getting the unfit tag is much lesser as compared to that of Mahabeej, he said.
“Its is strange that if rains could damage the Mahabeej seeds it could have happened with other companies too. How could the rains differentiate between Mahabeej and private companies seed producing farms,” said Deshmukh. He said Mahabeej particularly has not increased the rates since 2020. It had to be done this year due to rising input costs.
Vijay Gaikwad a retailer from Karanji Taluka in Yavatmal said there is a shortage of fertilisers like DAP and Potash also. The distributors are citing host of reasons including production bottleneck at the manufacturers’ end.
Ganesh Nanote a farmer from Akola said a bag of Potash that used to cost Rs900 to Rs950 last year is now expected to be at Rs1,700. “Though the stock is not available and prices are not out yet, traders are saying that the rates may be in the range of Rs1,700 this year. Potash is needed in subintimal quantity for cotton cultivation,” he said.