April 2022 to April 2023, the small farming community has been at loss.
Faridkot
The much higher temperatures in March 2022 and heavy rainfalls and hails in March 2023 badly hit the wheat growers.
In the consecutive years, the yield of the wheat has been much lower than their expectations.
In April 2022 and 2023, the wheat crop left the wheat growers in lurch as the yield in both consecutive seasons remained much below than their expectations.
In both the seasons, the yield of the wheat remained about 45 man(18 quintal) at most of the fields,which was about 6 quintal lower than the bumper crop yield.
According to PAU Ludhiana, newly released wheat varieties have capacity to yield about 22 quintals per acre, but in most of the fields the yields are further increased.
It roughly makes about Rs 12000 lower per acre which the input costs added up.
For both the seasons, a common farmer may have suffered a loss of about Rs 24000 from per acre of wheat.
Besides the yield of the wheat, the per acre yield of the wheat straw also decreased.
It hit the small farmers and economically backwards who rear animals badly.
“Last year, I requested many farmers to give me two trollies of wheat straw for cash, but they became hoarders because of the shortage of wheat straw. One trolley of wheat straw, which weighs about 7 quintal, was sold for Rs 3500 to 4000 directluy from the fields,” said Kala Singh, who rears milch animals for survival from village Devi Wala.
Besides that, the outbreak of Lumpy Skin Disease last summer also led to huge losses to the farmers.
Most of the farmers or others who had dairy cows ran into thousands rupees of loss because many cows died of the LSD and even if they survived, the keepers ahd to spend huge money on their treatment.
“The animals which contracted the disease went dry of milk and became weak even if they were saved by treatment,” said Sukhjinder Singh, a farmer from Faridkot village.
The farmers claimed that despite the increase in Minimum support price , their income fell lower than the previous years.
Only average and small farmers have to suffer because of the low yields because the big farmers are in position to survive even in adverse situations.
Many big farmers who own large farms almost give their land on annual leases.