Turmeric prices may rise in the coming weeks as farmers across the major turmeric producing States of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka are coming together to fix their own minimum selling price.
Andhra Pradesh turmeric farmers on Saturday joined their counterparts in the other three producing States to fix a minimum selling price of Rs 10,000 a quintal even as market prices crashed to about Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 a quintal.
Recently farmers in Tamil Nadu fixed their minimum price of Rs 9,000 a quintal, followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka where the price fixed was Rs 10,000 due to additional transportation costs.
In fact, prices had recently touched a low of Rs 3,000, when the Government came in with a market intervention price of Rs 4,000 a quintal. Drought conditions, over-supply and artificial hoarding by a cartel of traders have led to the collapse of turmeric prices in the last few months, farmers say.
In the absence of a minimum support price from the Government, the farmers, under the umbrella body of the Turmeric Farmers’ Association of India, have taken this step to fix their respective prices in the four States.
“We will not sell the product for anything less than Rs 10,000 a quintal as our cost of production is about Rs 8,700 a quintal. Current market prices will not cover 60 per cent of our production costs,” P.K. Deivasigamani, association president, said.