Farmers continue to struggle to buy cotton seeds in Adilabad for second day

Unmindful of the scorching heat, they lined up in front of the shops but were allowed to buy only two bags of 450 grams each.

Adilabad: Farmers continued to form serpentine queue lines to buy cotton seeds for the second day, facing sweltering heatwave conditions here on Wednesday. Cotton growers from several parts of the district swarmed 61 outlets of seeds in the town including Gandhi Chowk, Kishan Chowk and Ambedkar Chowk.

Unmindful of the scorching heat, they lined up in front of the shops but were allowed to buy only two bags of 450 grams each.

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Farmers allege diversion of seeds to MS Farmers alleged that the seed traders created an artificial shortage and diverted the seeds to neighboring Maharashtra. They said that they were going for the Rashi-659 variety considering the high yield registered.

They were unable to find the variety in mandal headquarters and were forced to visit the district headquarters. Meanwhile, Collector Rajarshi Shah and SP Gaush Alam along with officials of the agriculture department inspected the outlets.

District Agriculture Officer Pullaiah asked the farmers not to worry over availability of the seeds.

He advised them to buy the seeds at their nearby store as 6,98, 129 packets of seeds were available in 318 dealers across the district. The DAO said that district and mandal-level task force committees were formed to monitor the process of sales.

He instructed the owners of the shops to ensure sufficient stocks of the seeds and to prevent artificial shortage. He told them not to charge more than the maximum retail price (MRP). He suggested the farmers keep bills of the seeds till the crop was harvested.