Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda has urged the Centre to announce a special package for potato farmers and also establish a potato research station in Hassan, the home district of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda. In a representation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, he noted the recent letter of Deve Gowda, Hassan MP, regarding damage caused to commercial crops such as potato, cardamom, ginger, turmeric and tur dal crops in Karnataka particularly in Hassan district.
“He (Deve Gowda) has narrated in detail the extensive damage to the potato crop due to attack of Late Blight Disease continuously for the last four years and the untold miseries faced by the farmers of the District. It may not be out of place to mention here that potato is a major cash crop in Hassan district and this is the only district in the entire country which grows potato predominantly during Kharif season as rain fed crop. Therefore, it is to be noted that the entire financial stability of the farmers depend entirely on this crop”, the Chief Minister said in letters to Singh and Pawar. Though state government has provided relief under Calamity Relief Fund to the affected farmers, it is not enough to mitigate the suffering of the farmers growing potato, the Chief Minister said.
“Hence, it is only appropriate that the Centre announce a special package to farmers either in the form of loan waiver or provide interest free loan and also enhance the scale of compensation under Calamity Relief Fund so as to at least cover the cost of cultivation”, he said. Further, in Hassan District, due to continuous failure of potato crop, the farmers have switched over to growing of other commercial crops such as ginger, turmeric and cardamom. These crops too have also faced damage due to prevailing drought condition and certain diseases in case of cardamom in the district, Sadananda Gowda said.
In view of this, the Chief Minister wanted the Ministry of Agriculture to come to the rescue of the farmers growing potato in Karnataka by announcing a special package and also help in establishing a “Potato Research Station at Hassan” in order to find a permanent solution to the problems faced by these farmers.
“I also urge the Government of India to intervene in the procurement of ginger, turmeric and cardamom under Minimum Support Price Scheme so that the farmers could get remunerative prices for their produce,” he added.