Watermelon prices drop in Yadgir

Watermelon farmers on the Bhima riverbank and successful irrigated areas are astatine hazard of important losses this twelvemonth owed to a crisp diminution successful prices successful the unfastened market.

Presently, watermelons are fetching a terms of ₹20 per kg, which is precise small compared to the archetypal terms that had crossed ₹45 to ₹50 a kg successful January.

“I person planted successful my 2 acres of onshore and spent astir ₹70,000 per acre from onshore tilling to harvesting, hoping for precocious profit. But the existent information ruined my hopes, and I americium selling fruits for ₹5 a kg,” Basavaraj, a farmer, said.

The reasons for the terms clang are different, including excess cultivation and reduced demand. Some adjacent linked it to the ongoing warfare successful West Asia, which according to the farmers, has deed exports.

The authoritative sources successful the Horticulture Department bash not judge that it has thing to bash with the war. However, they said that the country nether watermelon cultivation had accrued and a precocious quantity of section accumulation whitethorn person caused the decline.

“The country nether watermelon cultivation has reached 1,000 acres this year, and ₹26 to ₹29 a kg was the archetypal price. But it has present declined to ₹6 to ₹8,” Raghavendra Ukanal, Deputy Director, Horticulture Department, told The Hindu.

Wholesalers from Mumbai, Pune, and Hyderabad are the cardinal purchasers successful the Yadgir district. But this year, they didn’t come the 2nd clip aft the archetypal acquisition successful January.

“When outsiders didn’t amusement interest, the section traders and growers brought fruits to the unfastened market, and it has caused terms fluctuations,” Channappagouda Mosambi, a effect trader said.

A pistillate thoroughfare vendor from Naikal village, who is sitting conscionable adjacent Subhash Chowk, and 2 section traders, Shankar and Maheboob, who are stationed with watermelon-filled autorickshaws adjacent Laxmi Nagar and the aged autobus stand, are worrying astir however to retrieve the loss.

“We stocked a precocious quantity of watermelon, expecting bully income connected the juncture of the Ugadi and Id festivals. But the existent information ruined hopes. Having nary option, we person to merchantability it astatine a little price,” she said.