Farmers in and around Darsi of Prakasam district took up cultivation of pumpkin taking advantage of the wet spell during the kharif season. Now, they rue their fate as unseasonal rains have hit productivity.
“Encouraged by good rains since the onset of the southwest monsoon, we decided to grow the popular vegetable crop in view of the steady market for it. But the untimely rains put paid to our hopes of getting a decent return,” laments a group of farmers while they are busy harvesting the crop.
Under normal condition they used to get 10 to 15 tonnes of pumpkin per acre. But now the productivity has fallen to less than 1.5 tonnes as the continuous rains during the flowering stage did not allow the vegetable crop to fully mature, says a farmer M. Srinivasa Reddy who has grown the vegetable crop in 3-1/2 acres of land in Botlapalem village.
“I have spent ₹25,000 per acre and unsure whether I will be able to get at least half the amount as the productivity has plummeted to abysmal low,” says another farmer V.V.N. Malleswara Rao, who has grown the crop in two acres of land.
But for the decent price of about ₹6,000 per tonne, the loss would have been even more, says yet another farmer G. Brahma Reddy before loading the produce into a truck to send it to the Martur vegetable market from where the yellow-coloured vegetable crop is moved to far away cities like Hyderabad and Chennai.
The solace
The only solace for these farmers who had also grown ladies finger in part of their land holding was that they were able to get about six quintals of the vegetable crop per acre after spending about ₹20,000 per acre.
Traders lapped the produce offering a remunerative price of ₹25 per kg from their farms, says Srinivasa Reddy who was able to make good the loss incurred on pumpkin.
