Most farmer suicides due to cotton trap'

Hyderabad: The Telangana state government is set to discourage cotton farming during the upcoming kharif season to reduce farmers suicides in the state. Most suicides, reported during the past two years in the state, were by cotton farmers.

Though cotton farming is not suitable in majority of the districts, farmers have been opting for cotton by borrowing money in the hope of earning profits. But farmers are increasingly committing suicides due to high debt caused by crop failure.

Of the 1,200 farmers suicides that were reported across the state last year, 80 per cent were identified as cotton farmers. During the kharif season last year (2015-16), while the total crop sown area in Telangana was 88.90 lakh acres, the extent of cotton crop alone was nearly half - amounting to 42.40 lakh acres.

The state government has now set a target of reducing the cotton sown area by at least 10 lakh acres. The government has asked the agriculture department to ensure that the cotton crop extent does not surpass 32 lakh acres in the ensuing kharif (June-September 2016).

The agriculture department has also devised an action plan aimed at organising awareness programmes across districts advising farmers against cotton. The studies done by the agriculture department also found that cotton farmers were incurring huge expenditure on cotton crops due to higher investment and cost of fertilisers and pesticides. They are taking loans from private money lenders at high interest rates.