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Farmers and laborers from a small gram panchayat, Nawabpet in Chittoor district, Andhrapradesh earn their household income from farming. However, with COVID-19 and untimely rains affecting the farming community in my grama panchayat, the 500 or so farmers who rely on these farming income are struggling despite the government stimulus.
The major crops grown in this area are tomato, brinjal, mango, marigold, and papaya, of all these the worst affected crops, are tomato and marigold.
Prices of tomatoes in the Madanapalli market, Chittoor district have crashed to Rs 2/kg as there are no buyers. with this condition, they were forced to let the vegetables and flowers rot on the plants.
For 1acre cultivation of tomato, every farmer has to invest more than 1lakh per acre, now they couldn't get even a single rupee during this hard phase. Every farmer fears losses of about 1 lakh to 10 lakh.
The majority of these farmers have taken a loan amount from a few locals to cultivate the produce. But, now they don't know how they can repay the loan amount.
They will face more difficulty if somebody does not help them.
What we can do with this money is to provide immediate financial assistance to farmers to buy necessary seeds and manure and get ready for the next crop season.
With the help of local FPO and NGOs of the Agri sector, we will help farmers to educate for doing organic cultivation of cereals, pulses, and millets rather than commercial crops.
This amount will be used sensibly and transparently.
A small amount goes a long way.
