Pumpkin growers in Nashik's Yeola hit as 70 per cent of crop spoils, prices fall to Rs 4-5 a kg

Farmers in Pimpalgaon Jalal, a village in Yeola taluka of Nashik district, are in serious difficulty. Maharashtra is facing the threat of drought, and the village's farmers are bearing the loss. Rain did not arrive on time, and their yield has suffered.

Pitru Paksha and Navratri are on, a period when farmers get good market prices. In that hope, farmers in Pimpalgaon Jalal decided to grow pumpkin (known locally as dangar). They expected pumpkin to fetch a better price than other crops, and cultivated it accordingly.

But the rain stayed away and the sun beat down fiercely. As a result, as much as 70 per cent of the pumpkin crop was spoiled. The farmers are bearing heavy losses because of the damage.

Even the pumpkin that ripened, the remaining 30 per cent of the produce, is not getting the expected price. In the market, pumpkin is now selling at Rs 4 to Rs 5 a kg. The crop has been damaged on one side, and on the other what was harvested is fetching a pittance. The farmers are caught in this double crisis.

With the yield down and no fair price in the market, farmers are helpless. Some farmers, instead of selling their pumpkin, cut it up and fed it to their cattle. Despite so much labour and expense, they are not getting the income they wanted from the pumpkin they grew, and they are in financial distress.

The farmers say rainfall is low because of the drought. They took up pumpkin farming, and now the market is not giving a fair price. With Navratri close, the pumpkin season has been wasted. They say 30 to 40 per cent of the pumpkin is good but 60 per cent has spoiled, and as the market is paying Rs 3 to Rs 4, they are bearing losses.

The farmers of Pimpalgaon Jalal planted pumpkin hoping for a good price during the festival season, but the crop failed for want of rain and because of the harsh sun, and it has not found a price in the market either.