Pomegranate farmers demand Rs 300-crore loan waiver

Pomegranate farmers in the state on Wedesday urged the government to waive off Rs 300 crore borrowed by them from nationalised and co-operative banks, as 90 per cent of the crop perished due to blight disease in 2005-06.

As many as 50,000 farmers in the State await a favourable response from the Central government to a letter sent by the State government last week requesting for the loan waiver on the lines of the Coffee Debt Relief Package.

The total area under pomegranate in the State is as much as 13,187 acres out of which 90 per cent faced a severe yield loss due to the blight disease, said Abdul Nayeem, president of the Rajiv Gandhi Sawayava Krushi Dalimbe Belegarara Raitara Trust, at a news conference held in Bangalore on Wednesday.

Following the failure of 90 per cent of the pomegranate orchards in the state, pomegranate farmers from 13 districts have requested the government yet again to waive agriculture loans.

Nearly 3,000 pomegranate farmers are in debt in Koppal district. Collectively across the 13 districts that have pomegranate orchards farmers continue to receive legal notices and notices from nationalised banks and cooperative banks asking for immediate repayment. Each of them have an outstanding loan amount of `7-10 lakh.

Nayeem said that funds to the tune of Rs 3 crores were given to University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, to conduct research on producing pesticides that could control the disease but even that effort failed.

Also called as the oily spot disease, the onset of blight disease is due to sudden increases in day temperature and existing humidity along with sporadic rainfall, said Shashidhara, secretary of the Trust.

“Fruits develop spots and then begin to swell and split,” he said. “We do not produce these fruits anymore. The fruit is currently being sourced into the state from Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh,” Shashidhara added.

Most of these farmers, sources said, now grow sunflower, jowar, bajra and maize and thousands have migrated to other districts seeking other jobs.