Farmers in no mood to shop this festive season

AHMEDABAD | PUNE: Farmers in several cash crop belts across the country are in no mood to shop this festive season because of lower returns this year. They do not plan to buy much since their returns have been affected by higher input costs such as seed, labour and fertiliser.

“I was planning to buy a new fridge and television this Diwali. However, due to poor yield of paddy and less return, I will limit my purchase to sweets and crackers,” says Swaran Singh, a farmer from Nandpur village in district Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab.

Profits too are unevenly spread across crops. In Maharashtra, farmers growing fruit such as grapes and pomegranates, cane and soyabean, for instance, have made good money. But onion farmers in Maharashtra, and paddy farmers in Kerala, Punjab and Tamil Nadu are not so lucky.

Rajesh Shukla, a director at National Council of Applied Economic Research’s Centre for Macro Consumer Research, says farm income in the country is declining and by 2015 it will account for just one-third of the rural economy.