Farmers anxious over rains and damaged crops — what could be the solution to their woes? Experts weigh in

"Harvesting is currently going on and half of my crop has been damaged because of wind, rains and hailstorms. Usually, at this time, I get Rs 3000-4000 per quintal for my wheat crops, but because of damage...the price stands at Rs 2000 per quintal," said Neerav Karwa, a farmer based out of Rajasthan's Jhalawar.

Ram Prasad Kushwaha, another farmer from Uttar Pradesh's Lalitpur, told CNBCTV18.com: "It’s been raining since Saturday night and my crop (wheat has been damaged). The wind already flattened the crop and now, with hailstorms and rain, the crop has been damaged further."

Already in anguish and pinning hopes on the government, Kushwaha requested authorities to provide some ailment for crop loss. Some farmers also sought compensation for revenues lost due to bumper harvests.

Amid the weather mayhem, farmers complained of not getting appropriate prices for their produce, low incomes, and unfair insurance payout among other issues. Among their demands are a fair price for crops, farm loan waiver, electricity bills waiver and implementation of the Forest Rights Act (2006).

They said no compensation was provided to them by the state government and that the government's crop insurance scheme is not helping either. They alleged that their insurance claims were rejected and even if they are honoured, the payout was a small fraction of what they had applied for.

Making these claims and demands, thousands of farmers in Maharashtra carried out a protest march from Nashik to Mumbai. Some of them deliberately destroyed their crops by running a bulldozer over their ready-to-sell produce.

Vasant Naik of Pimpalgaon Niphani village in Maharashtra’s Nashik said, "When I inquired in the market, the price for cauliflower was 40-50 paise per kilogram. I couldn't sell my crop at that rate and I needed the farms to sow groundnuts, so I destroyed my cauliflower crop."

Devinder Sharma, an agricultural economist, said economists and experts have time and again argued over innovation and new methods that can possibly help farmers to get more money. Why don't tomato farmers start manufacturing tomato puree or why don't potato growers start making frozen fries or potato chips or set up Vodka plants? These are some of the options put forth by a few people.

Sharma said he visited some wholesale markets to review the situation and found that there's a saturation in the market of potato chips. "We are importing frozen fries so there's no market here for that too...also, we import 80 percent of tomato puree from abroad...," Sharma said while arguing against such ideas.

"Agriculture is the only sector where there is no price tag," noted Sharma, saying that it is the sector which deserves the Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) the most. He also batted for setting up a commission for farmers' welfare which will take care of all the farmers' needs and woes.

"Just like the pay commission, it should look into what exactly needs to be done, how inflation happened and all about the farmer's income," he said.

He also said farmers should be given an assured or guaranteed price. He suggested making prices announced on 23 crops a "legal instrument" — meaning, no purchase below that price should be allowed and that everyone, whether a private trader or government, should buy at the Minimum Support Price (MSP).

MSPs are the prices at which the government procures certain crops - such as cereal, pulses, oilseeds and commercial crops - every year from farmers to insure them against any sharp fall in prices.

"If the farmer will get to earn more money, this will go into market and subsequently generate demand...the day when 94 percent of the farmers get more money, it will add act a rocket-dose for the economy," he said.

However, the Executive Director of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, GV Ramanjaneyulu, was quoted by Business Standard as saying that a "if the government provides a legal guarantee to MSP, it will lead to wrong cropping patterns tilted towards high-yielding crops".

Fearing damage due to heatwaves, farmers started selling Kharif onion and late Kharif onion crops, resulting in a surplus that caused a subsequent drop in prices. The situation worsened so much that onion and potatoes were being sold for as low as Rs 2 and Rs 4.

Now, unseasonal rainfall has damaged crops and acres of land in several North Indian states. Devendra Sharma, an agricultural expert, said while the impact on wheat and rabi crops "is not that much", the damage to fruits and vegetables was "quite serious".

As per the Maharashtra government, the first round of Punchnama (survey) established that crops spread over 13,000 hectares in eight districts were destroyed. This number has now crossed 66,000 hectares. Wheat, grapes, maize, banana, papaya, cashew nuts, mangoes, tomatoes and onions are some of the affected crops. Over 85,000 farmers are impacted in the state due to these unseasonal rains.

It's not just Maharashtra. Crops were damaged in 20 districts of Madhya Pradesh. Bhopal, Mandsaur, Khargone, Narmadapuram, Shahdol, Gwalior, and Rewa were the worst affected districts and wheat crop, among the other crops, was the most affected crop. As per the state government, based on what's reported by several government agencies so far, crops spread over 40,000 hectares are damaged and over 5,000 farmers were affected.

In Punjab, ready-to-harvest wheat crop, vegetable, and fruit crops (bottle guard, okra, bitter guard, watermelon, etc) were damaged. Crops in other states such as Rajasthan and Haryana reported similar losses.

According to AgriWatch, "overall the standing rabi crops including wheat, pulses and mustard etc is expected to get affected in the coming days".