NASHIK: Summer tomato cultivation has started in Dindori taluka and is getting ready to pick up the pace. The farmer seems to have turned his attention to vegetable crops as climate change has hit the Kharif season this year which has caused a huge decline in the production of soybean, groundnut, urad, mug, and rice crops.
He seems to have made up his mind for a contingency plan for the coming rabi season to recoup the losses incurred during the current Kharif sowing season. Farmers who have access to water have started cultivating vegetables while some farmers have started pre-plant pre-sowing. Currently, seedlings are being procured from the nursery for planting any vegetable crop because nursery seedlings have a large number of roots and these seedlings are disease-free as they have survived in protective shields. For the last three to four years, the farmer in the areas hasn’t been seen preparing seedlings at home.
This is because planting seedlings in the open carries a high risk of rain, cold, and disease. Due to this, there is a growing demand for nursery seedlings in the taluka. What is special is that the farmer is not willing to take any risk while cultivating many crops including vegetables. At present, before planting any vegetable crop, drip irrigation is done on a sari-like cloth, and then the paper is spread on it before planting a vegetable crop.
Therefore, just as the crop remains disease-free and weed-free, drip irrigation can provide as much water as required to the crop. With that in mind, more farmers think of modern farming. After the fall in crop prices, farmers are again incurring losses and going into debt. But the farmers are now in a situation where they cannot even close the farm business. Climate change has pushed up the cost of crops, with the prices of chemical fertilizers skyrocketing. Many farmers believe that agribusiness is in danger due to not getting a fair price for their produce.
