BANGALORE: Excess weed growth and non-availability of labour are the major problems faced by the state cotton growers. Sharing their experience with media on Tuesday, Veeresh, a progressive farmer from Khanapur village, Raichur, said that every year the problem is increasing.Incessant rainfall in this kharif season is increasing the spread of weeds, and removing these weeds timely requires intensive labour especially during the harvesting season, he said. Veeresh, who is cultivating cotton since 20 years and the first one to adopt Bt cotton technology stated, “Arranging mid season agriculture labour for weeding the unwanted grass is getting really tough. The labourers whom we used to pay `100 per day are demanding more than `200 now.”“In order to get high paid labour service, most of these labourers (about 60 percent) are now migrating to cities, which is why the problem is getting worse” he added.Meanwhile, this has also affected the crop production. Another cotton grower Sathyappa from Raichur said, “On an average, we used to get about 12 quintals of cotton per acre, but the production has now gone down by near about 30 percent per annum.” Karnataka (specifically the districts- Raichur, Yadgir, Bellary and parts of Koppal and Dharward) contribute to about 20 per cent of the total cotton production in the country. Over the past decade farmers have created a cotton revolution by doubling the production using better hybrid cotton seeds and insect-protection Bt trait technologies.“Unfortunately, the production seems to have come down. Creating awareness about the use of chemical and technology available to resolve all the issues has become important” said, Dr BT Pujari, Director of Research, University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur.
Comments
0 comment