M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, May 30: Palamu is yet to make a head starter to the cultivation of the millets. Although it’s the International Year of Millets 2023, there is a lukewarm response from the farmers towards the coarse grains here in this drought-prone district.
A noted farmer of Chainpur Perween Kumar Pandey said, “The farmers do not know as to why we are asked every year to manipulate our farming. We were first asked for alternative cropping in the drought. When we did not do this, we are now asked to go for growing millets. Is there any market for the coarse grains?”
“Sloganeering like the 2023 International Year of the Millets sounds too ear soothing but no farmer is convinced of the commercial stake of the millets as to what its MSP (minimum support price) is like that of paddy and whether also it will be procured like paddy by the FCI here in Palamu. This unawareness of the MSP, procurement and market in general act as a repulsive factor for the farmers here in Palamu towards the millets,” said the farmer Pandey.
22 crops are covered under the MSP, including the millets Jowar, Bajra and Marwa, also called Ragi.
Another woman farmer requesting anonymity said, “Farmers cultivate crops not only to eat round the year. They cultivate it to earn money to be spent on the marriage of their daughters. We do not cultivate crops to buy ACs or fans or Scooty or washing machines.”
She said these millets if we grow will not make us prosperous in this harsh price rise time. The coarse grains are not competitive grains like that of paddy, wheat and pulse.
According to Palamu district agricultural officer Dinesh Kumar Majhi, “We have been given an allotment of only 25 quintals of the seed of the millets. It is an allotment. We are yet to receive the seeds from the state government in bags.”
On being reminded that sowing of the millets be it Jowar, Bajra, Marwa etc is done in the months of June and July only and there is just an allotment of seeds and no arrival of seeds in Palamu when June is hours ahead now, Majhi said “I am nobody to comment on this situation. All that I can say at this moment is that we hope to get seeds soon.”
Again only 1,000 hectares of land including Tarn land have been identified for the cultivation of the millets in Palamu while for paddy cultivation, which is a staple crop here it is 50,000 hectares plus land in Palamu to which the district agricultural officer Majhi said “This earmarking to just 1,000 hectares of land including Tarn land is in proportion to the allotment of only 25 quintals of the millet seeds.”
“The allotment of 25 quintals of the millet seed, in fact, is not enough to millet crop coverage in even 1,000 hectares of land as 20 kgs of seeds are needed for cultivation per hectare of land.” said another official in the district agricultural office h
Millet seeds come for 81 Rupees a kilogram but with a 50 per cent government subsidy a millet grower is to spend his 40.5 rupees only per kg seed of the millets.
Millets grow in less water than what is required for the paddy but the labour and efforts that go into it hardly convert into cash immediately like that of paddy.
