They’re staring at a debt trap and are starved of the resources needed for the next agrarian cycle Ripe papayas hung on each tree, with squishy rotting ones at the base of many.
We sat on the mud in a big circle under the trees, shielded partially from the summer sun. The farm’s owner explained the details of his 75% loss on the crop during the lock-down.
His market is Hyderabad. With no transportation across states available to the average person, he could only sell locally in the nearby towns of Surpur and Yadgir.
The offtake was a tiny fraction of what it would have been in a big city. Prices kept dropping each day. Till it made no sense to spend on labour to pick the papayas and transport them across 20km to either town.