Warrangal, October 30: Cotton growers ransacked the office of the Yenumamula agricultural market yard on Friday in protest against the low price being offered by traders for their produce.
A farmer, who came to the market yard to sell cotton, entered into an argument with a trader for being offered a mere Rs 3,400 per quintal.
The trader, Bhaskar, told the farmer that the cotton was damp and would offer only Rs 3,400 but not the prevailing market price of Rs 4,370.
The angry farmer thrashed the trader and later a large number of farmers rushed to the market yard, ransacked the office and threw the furniture outside. Police intervened and pacified the farmers.
PRICE VARIATION: Cotton-growers seemed a happy lot this year as they were getting an attractive price after a gap of almost 10 years. The market rate per quintal ranges between Rs 4,000 and Rs 4,500 in Warangal, Khammam and Adilabad markets.
However, the recent rains in Warangal drenched the cotton completely and traders were willing to pay Rs 4,300 only for fine quality cotton.
The MSP for cotton this year is Rs 3,000 and traders claim they are paying more than the MSP.
A large number of farmers complain that there is a shortage of cotton in China, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Besides, cotton prices are soaring in the international market. with the current price of one bale of cotton being around Rs 43,000.
The plucking of cotton has just begun and markets receive bulk quantities in November and December.
Farmers are apprehensive that traders will dictate terms in case of a bumper crop and the markets gets flooded with cotton. The price offered by traders on the Bhadrachalam market yesterday was Rs 4,500 a quintal. But they slashed the price today to Rs 4,370 on the ground that the price of one bale of cotton went down by Rs 2,000 in the international market.
The Yenumamula market has received 1.70 lakh quintals of cotton so far – an average of 40,000 to 50,000 bags a day.
WTO CELL: Though farmers are getting a good price for cotton, the gap between the prices of international market and domestic markets is about Rs 4,000.
This price differential is attributed to the system of sale. First, the local trader will purchase cotton from farmers and sells it to traders from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat.
These traders, in turn, export the cotton to foreign markets. The commissions to be paid at each stage naturally keeps the prices at the first stage of purchase at the bare minimum. Thus, farmers get a paltry remuneration even though the export price of their produce is higher.
The state agricultural department had set up a cell of the World Trade Organization at the commissionerate in November 2005 to guide farmers on the quality of produce, exports and international market prices to avert their exploitation by middlemen.
But, unfortunately, the much-hyped WTO Cell has not been working effectively for these five years with their objective of confined only to files.
Devanna, a farmer from Barampur in Adilabad district, tells Express that the cotton price per quintal in neighbouring Maharashtra was Rs 5,200.
The Maharashtra cotton has only 28 mm staples whereas the Andhra cotton has 30 mm staples. “That means, our farmers have to get a better price,” he says.
According to him, cotton farmers are getting a better price than last year.
In view of the fast-approaching Deepavali festival, farmers in need of money are selling cotton at whatever price offered by traders, he says.
The non-functioning of WTO Cell is behind the woes of thousands of farmers like Devanna in Telangana.
–Agencies