Severe rains, lack of compensation prove double-whammy for Gujarat farmers

Like in several other parts of India, Gujarat has been reeling under heavy rains. Four days of torrential downpour not only threw life out of gear in the western state but also caused agricultural damage across multiple districts, particularly as the farmers had sown the kharif crops.

The farming community in the state is looking at things with despair at the moment, all the more so because they are not very hopeful about receiving compensation anytime soon.

Also read: Gujarat receives above-average monsoon rain; several districts flooded

Karjanbhai Gadvi, a 42-year-old farmer from Charda village in Dhanera taluka of Banaskantha district, is one of them. Speaking to The Federal, he said he got an opportunity to check on his crops, but what he could see was only a muddy swamp. “There is nothing left of the groundnuts I had sown,” he said.

Farmers lose source of living

Gadvi added that he hasn’t witnessed loss of such magnitude since the floods of 2015 and 2017. His entire field was washed away by rainwater and rocks were left scattered across the cultivation land. Gadvi's biggest regret is it will take months to get rid of the rocks and make the land arable again with the help of fertilisers.

“Until then, I have no source of income,” he submitted.

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While Dhanera has seen water receding, Tharad, Vav and Suigam talukas of Banaskantha’s neighbouring district of Vav-Tharad are yet to see much improvement after getting battered by more than 16 inches of rainfall.

Loan burden

Gemarbhai Thakor, a farmer from Bhakri village in Vav taluka, told The Federal that the village remained submerged even after the rain stopped. He has been living in Palanpur in Banaskantha since Sunday (September 7).

Apart from the loss of crops, he is also worried about repaying the loan of Rs 3 lakh he took a few months ago to buy agricultural inputs.

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“The sesame and groundnut I had sown have been underwater for over three days now. By now, they have surely been damaged. I had borrowed Rs 3 lakh in June from a local moneylender. I used the money to buy seeds and fertilisers. Now, I don’t know how I will repay the loan with no earnings this season,” he said.

Little relief from govt

Thakor also lost four bulls in the flood, and his home is inundated. With a family of four to feed, he shared his dilemma — rebuilding his house or spending money to sow crops again so that he has an income next season.

Also read: Maharashtra mango crop hit by unseasonal rain, pest surge

The latest crisis is not new. Just last December, Thakor faced crop loss in unseasonal rain and was assured by the village sarpanch that he would get compensation. But he got nothing.

About 60 per cent of the groundnut crop that Thakor had sown last year was damaged. His income was thus low, driving him to take a loan to buy seeds and fertilisers.

Govt funds remain unutilised

In 2022-23, the state's BJP government had approved Rs 62.5 crore to compensate farmers who suffered crop losses due to unseasonal rain. In 2023-24, Rs 61.5 crore was allocated again to aid the crop-growing community.

Yet, the Gujarat government’s Agriculture, Farmers' Welfare and Co-operation Department acknowledged earlier this year that a staggering Rs 85 crore out of the Rs 124 crore allocated for crop loss and agrarian infrastructure repair and development between 2022 and 2024 remained unutilised.

Last October, again, the Gujarat government announced a relief package of ₹1,419.62 crore for farmers whose crops were damaged by heavy rains in August 2024. There is no publicly confirmed figure showing how much of that amount has actually been disbursed to farmers under that specific relief.

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Meanwhile, the farmers continue to face distress.

Zero compensation

Mehulbhai Dabhi, a farmer from Badarpura village in Idar taluka of Sabarkantha district, said he has seen a loss of more than Rs eight lakh since 2022.

“In 2022, about half of the cotton I sowed got damaged due to heavy rain. In 2023, all my crops got washed away from the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis (yards). By the time the 2024 sowing season came, I was under a debt of Rs 5 lakh. I was counting on the crop yield this kharif season to repay my loan. But the cotton crops got damaged once again,” Dabhi told The Federal.

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Despite awaiting compensation for the past three years, he has received nothing, he said. He added that only four farmers in his village got Rs 1 lakh each in August 2023, while many others had to borrow money to survive.

Farmers in the state have not only lost standing crops or sown seeds but also those harvested and kept in the APMC yards, farmer activist and AAP leader Sagar Rabari told The Federal. Rabari was earlier secretary of the Khedut Samaj - Gujarat, a farmers' rights organisation.

APMC yard losses

“In 2023, castor, pulses and cotton were washed away from Bhuj’s APMC yard, leaving farmers with heavy losses. In April 2023, the same happened in Patan district. Castor, groundnut and sesame worth Rs 15-16 lakh was lost. In October 2024, harvested groundnuts were washed away from Bhavnagar APMC. The majority of the APMC buildings, especially in North Gujarat and the Saurashtra region, are in bad shape. There is no covered space to store crops in most of these APMCs,” Rabari said.

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“In 2022, apart from the compensation for the crop loss, the Gujarat government had also set aside funds to modernise and repair the APMC buildings. But no work has been done so far,” he added.

Rabari added that the situation is no different for farmers in South and central Gujarat. In March this year, the government estimated a loss of banana crops across 560 acres and that of pearl millet crops on 3,000 acres in Dabhoi, Shinor and Padra areas in Vadodara district, he said. Government officials assessed that mango crops were damaged across 530 acres in South Gujarat, while sesame crops were reported to have been affected across 550 acres in North Gujarat, he added.

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A handful of mango farmers in South Gujarat received compensation, but the majority of their colleagues across central, North and Saurashtra regions are yet to get the government aid, said Rabari.

'Compensation a long process'

Anju Sharma, Additional Chief Secretary of the Agriculture, Farmers Welfare and Cooperation Department, told The Federal: “Disbursement of compensation after a natural calamity is a long process. The survey of the crop loss takes several months, and only after that, the process of disbursing the compensation begins."

She, however, refused to comment on the matter of unutilised compensation since 2022.