Hyderabad: Farmer Shama Mohan Reddy’s story is one of absolute desperation. In a suicide note, written on the day of his death on April 5, Reddy appealed to a private lender asking him to take his home because he was simply unable to pay back a loan he had taken.
“I had borrowed money from you when I needed. But I don’t have cash for repaying you the loan on time. I don’t own any asset except my residence. So, you can sell it and strike off the balance in the credit,” pleaded Reddy, 58.
He then consumed pesticide and died the same day. Reddy is a native of Muskanpet village of Illantakunta mandal, around 40 kilometres from the district headquarters.
The death of the beleagured farmer illustrates the desperation farmers in the region are facing due to unprecedented losses triggered by deficit rainfall over the past two years.
Alarmingly, a total of 22 farmers have committed suicide in January and February alone, according to data provided by the district crime records bureau.
From June 1, 2015 to April 7 of 2016, the district recorded just 696 mm of rainfall as against the normal 939 mm of rainfall - 26 per cent drop.
As many as 19 mandals were declared as drought-hit ones by state government in 2015. Responding to the problem, concerned authorities have started trying to identify affected mandals and officials have advised farmers to switch to irrigated dry (ID) crops such as maize, greengram, blackgram, redgram and groundnut instead of the usual paddy.
And in order to provide more sources of income to the agrarian community, district authorities have instructed banks to sanction loans for buying milching animals. But farmers are unable to reach profits from the animals as prices of milk and fat have been reduced by dairies due to new market players in the dairy sector.
