Muddebihal Taluk of Bijapur District is rich for producing tur dal and sunflower. But the farmers have lost nearly 70 per cent of production due to floods this year. The heavy rain which occurred for nearly 5 months have affected the quality and quantity of all the crops resulting in a huge loss for the farmers.
Machakka Ingalgeri, a farmer said, “we are farmers and we have nothing, to arrange two times meal for us, we have to work every day. All our cattle are starving without sufficient fodder and so are we without food. Government has not provided any funds even in this crisis.”
The daily wage workers who work in other farmer’s land at a minimum amount of Rs. 150 per day, have lost their jobs, they are waiting for monsoon to get some work again. Their families do not have two times meal. Their children have left the schools. But the govt. has nothing to offer these landless farmers.
Ningamma Balekoppa, a daily wage worker told us, “I don’t have my own land, I work every day to earn food even in this old age. No MPs or MLAs have helped us.It is very difficult for us to take care of our families, it is no lesser than a nightmare for us. We have no freedom in this age as well. Those who have their own lands have got compensation, we people who are daily wage workers have got no money from government.”
Students of the taluk have to travel 13 kms to school everyday as the village lacks good road infrastructure
The cost of seeds farmers receiving starts from Rs.55/kg, RS.78/Kg, Rs.117/Kg (price dated this week) but they are receiving seeds at RS.147/Kg which is expensive than government allotted price chart series and that’s a mid-grade seeds which they are receiving.
Farmers have not received any compensations from the state government. The burden of huge loans on them is leading them to migrate to cities and work on minimum wages as their empty barren lands in villages are not fertile yet to grow anything.
2 Farmers have committed suicide in Muddebihal taluk in the year 2018-19 because of loss in sunflower and other crops. The loss to farmers as they have taken loans for growing crops and sudden destruction of crops due to heavy rainfall has caused a complete loss on what they had invested in farming. As North Karnataka is the main chain of growth in Sunflower and Dal in Karnataka if the crops get damaged it directly affects the consumers too because of hike in the price of these daily used grain and sunflowers for manufacturing oil.
Gram Panchayats said that they have not received any funds or bills regarding clearance of loan debts or crops loss debts. It would be cleared only if Tahsildar provides notice to banks.
Kodihalli Chandrashekar, President Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sanga said, “Krishna, Doodh Ganga, Veda Ganga, Hiranyakeshu, Maarkandeya dams are there in this region. After Krishna received tribunal award, Krishna management did not organize the board. Today also the compensation has not been provided properly in this region, local politicians and others are diverting the funds to the party workers and people they want, they are providing funds to the people who are in need of it.”
With a hope to get back a good yield, farmers invested lakhs of money in their lands but all they are left again with is empty pockets and a struggling life. And on the darker side of agriculture, the struggle of these farmers remains endless.
