Khammam: The drought-like conditions have forced tenant farmers to cancel their agreements with landowners. They have lost hope of cultivating crops this kharif due to lack of adequate rainfall. Many of them have decided to switch to labour works for their livelihood.
Now, the landowners are finding it difficult to hire new tenant farmers. In such a situation, some landowners offered their land for less rent compared to last year while a few others are offering interest-free loans to the tenant farmers.
However, there is very little response to these offers from the tenant farmers.
In Palair constituency, the situation is pathetic with nearly 40,000 tenant farmers deciding to drop their proposal to take the land on lease after ploughing the farms.
They have not approached the landowners after ploughing the land and are reportedly not even answering their phone calls.
The tenant farmers, along with their family members, are migrating to Khammam to work as labourers at construction sites.
Usually, builders would face scarcity of labourers during kharif as many get involved in agriculture works in their villages.
However this year, the builders are happy that labourers are available.
In Kusumanchi and Tirumalayapalem mandals, the land lease rate has dropped to Rs 10,000 per acre from Rs 20,000. It is estimated that about 5,000 lease agreements, in Palair Assembly segment, were cancelled due to the dry spell.
This had an impact on the extent of cultivable land in the district. Cotton was raised in only 20 per cent of the land so far and similar is the condition of other crops.
According to a report, seeds sown in 10,000 hectares had not germinated due to the lack of adequate rains. Farmers have to be sow the seeds for a second time. In Khammam district, crops were raised only in 56,997 hectares this year instead of the usual 2.3 lakh hectares.
