Mardan farmers hit hard by power cuts, rising seed, fertiliser prices

PESHAWAR: Complaining about the long hours of electricity loadshedding and low voltage, the farmers in Mardan district on Tuesday asked the government to solve their problems. 

Talking to The News, the farmers said that they cannot run tubewells to irrigate their fields due to the loadshedding and low voltage.They said that rising prices of seed, fertilizers and pesticides and inflated electricity bills have compounded their problems, but the government was least bothered to provide them relief. 

Latif Khan, a farmer hailing from Mayar village, said many growers had stopped growing maize and vegetables due to non-availability of water. Pointing towards the fields on both sides of road from Naway Killay, Toru, Mayar, Swarian up to Mardan city, he said there was no maize crop and vegetables this season.

Latif Khan said he had stopped cultivating his land because of loadshedding as water was not available for irrigation.He said the farmers had to pay heavy taxes and they are unable to pay electricity bills for running tubewells. 

He said they had to pay Rs1,000 per hour for the tractor to plough the land. “A tractor took three hours to plough four kanals of land. The growers had to plough the land three times for growing a crop,” he pointed out. 

Latif Khan lamented that the farmers were mostly uneducated, and didn’t know how to highlight their problems and make themselves heard by the government so that they could be helped.

He said they had to pay Rs400 per hour for a generator to run a tubewell to irrigate the crops. “Not many farmers can afford to avail this facility due to the high cost,” he added.Another farmer Jehanzeb said their elected public representatives were least bothered to discuss the farmers’ problems in the assemblies. 

He said every government made tall claims about promoting agriculture, but no practical step was taken to provide them any relief.  He asked the government to install solar-powered tubewells to facilitate the farmers to irrigate their crops. Jehanzeb said agriculture was the backbone of Pakistan’s economy as it also provided raw material for the industries.