Andhra Pradesh farmers face double trouble due to West Asia war and El Nino

Andhra Pradesh farmers are in for a double trouble till August on two counts: one is the war that is raging in West Asia, and the other the looming El Nino, which last hit them quite badly in 2018. 

The foremost concern is the disruption in the passage of merchant ships through the Strait of Hormuz as the US – Israel combine and Iran fight for control over this critical shipping lane. 

Andhra Pradesh’s ex-Officio Special Chief Secretary (A&MD) Budithi Rajasekhar flagged its likely impact on the export of rice, banana, onion, green chillies, mango, cashew and eggs in the Collectors’ Conference. 

He stated that the shipment challenges have already triggered a fall in the price of G-9 banana (a high – yielding Cavendish variety) from ₹25 to ₹18 per kilo and the prevailing uncertainty in the Iranian markets led to a drop of up to ₹500 per quintal of Basmati rice and the non – Basmati rice might also be affected. 

He also pointed out that there has been a 22% fall in the price of eggs due to the partial diversion of 70 lakh eggs that are normally exported daily, to the domestic market. 

Besides, he indicated a significant impact on the seafood exports because of the increasing freight and insurance costs. 

On the other hand, the A&MD  predicted that the El Nino will cause a deviation in rainfall from -10% to beyond -12% and extended dry spells in various districts during the March – August period. 

Besides, it expected the temperatures to be above normal from June to August with an anomaly of 0.75, 1.29 and 0.92 Degrees Celsius in those three months respectively.

While noting that groundnut, cotton and red gram suffered extensive damage in a total of  11.60 lakh hectares during the El Nino in 2018, the A&MD prescribed comprehensive  measures to face the adverse climatic conditions. 

The government has been alerted to take necessary market intervention measures to insulate the farmers from the impact of the shipping constraints resulting from the war and the extreme weather event in the offing.