Soyabean crops hit by rain, germinating sprouts in the old Adilabad district

ADILABAD: The soyabean crop in the fields affected by incessant rain are germinating sprouts before harvest, causing a worry to farmers in the old Adilabad district. This would reduce its price in the market.

There has been continuous rain here since August 16 and this has affected the standing crops like soya and cotton. A large number of soya farmers are yet to harvest their crop.

Soya crop was cultivated on around 91,000 acres while cotton on 4,11,578 acres in the district. There was little increase in the area of soya cultivation this season, though. This was because of a sharp decline in the price of the crop the last time – a fall to Rs 5,000 from Rs 11,000 that was allegedly due to the market games played by traders.

The farmers say traders had offered the highest price Rs 11,000 per quintal for soya much before the harvest season. Suddenly the price fell to Rs 5,000 by the time the farmers started bringing their harvested crop to the market.

Farmer Allam Rajender of Girnur village of Bhajarhathnoor mandal who cultivated soya crop on his 3-acre land said he suffered huge losses due to the damage his crop faced because of the rain and the resultant germination of the sprouts.

‘Rainwater inundated the entire soya crop and there was a high level of waterlogging, said Rajender, adding it was difficult to drain out the floodwater from the agriculture fields.

Farmers say hot weather conditions for the next 10 days can help save the soya crop.