Booze on my farm and I will call the cops: Kothagudem farmer puts up banner to shoo away tipplers

In order to address the menace, a farmer in Dammapet mandal has come up with a solution. He displayed a banner at his oil palm field with a warning that he would call the police if anyone was found consuming liquor in his field

Kothagudem: The practice of consuming liquor in and around farm fields and littering the fields with liquor bottles has been troubling the farmers. In villages here, the practice has become rampant as tipplers, especially youths, choose isolated places such as mango orchards, oil palm fields and places near agriculture fields to booze. They often break the bottles and throw them in the fields.

In order to address this menace, a farmer in Dammapet mandal in the district has come up with a solution. He displayed a flex banner at his oil palm field with a warning that he would inform the police if anyone was found consuming liquor in his field.

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The move by the farmer, K Rajeev of Dammapet mandal headquarters, has become the talk of the town, and now, other farmers are also planning to follow suit. He said that unlike other farmers, palm oil farmers would not be present in the plantation every day, which had become an advantage for boozers.

Taking advantage of modern technology, many farmers water the palm oil plants through drip irrigation system motors equipped with automatic starters and leave the fields. When the farm field owner was not present, the boozers turn such fields into their boozing addas, he said.A resident of Dammapet, Nagaraju, said Rajeev’s idea was a good one and would serve as a deterrent against boozers damaging the farm fields. Because of the broken liquor bottles, not only humans, cattle have also been injured often, he added.

It remains to be seen how long the banner will succeed in keeping tipplers away.