Iran war drives Maharashtra farmers to bullocks

Tukaram Masal straps two large plastic cans to his motorcycle and heads into town to buy diesel for his tractors. So why not take those vehicles along directly?

“That would waste both fuel and money,” says Masal. A tractor at best averages five kilometres to a litre of diesel that “now costs close to 100 rupees a litre.” And he’s got to do the rounds of multiple fuel stations.

Diesel rationing has begun.

“They give us only a few litres each time,” says Masal, a 53-year-old farmer from Wakwad village, about 25 kilometres from Bhoom town in Maharashtra's drought-prone Dharashiv district.

“I go to five different petrol pumps to buy diesel so that I get at least 20-25 litres to last a day,” he says. Fuel stations in and around Bhoom are far and few between.

Some days Masal travels 70-80 kilometres between pumps in search of diesel. “And I’m lucky if I get some every two or three days,” he says. And sometimes, fuel stations refuse to fill diesel into plastic cans, insisting that they bring the tractors to the pump.

Demand for diesel surged sharply in May ahead of the kharif season. While the Centre and oil companies assert there is no shortage of fuel, the war in West Asia notwithstanding, the picture on the ground is different. Cities were more affected by the price of petrol being raised four times in nine days since May 15.

In the rural interior, the clamour for diesel is real and rising. Across several districts, anxious farmers describe long queues, purchase limits and uncertainty over future supplies.

Masal is among thousands of farmers tormented by this anxiety.

A Dhangar by caste, Masal owns two acres of land. Dairy farming is his main source of income. The family also runs a small grocery shop. His two tractors provide an additional source of earnings through the year, as he rents them out to farmers in neighbouring villages.

The shortages are in part driven by panic buying and stockpiling amid fears of future scarcity and rising prices. In official reckoning, average fuel sales in some places are 150 per cent higher than usual.

In districts like Nashik, it’s a double whammy. Onion prices have collapsed, while fuels costs have soared. “I got just 211 rupees a quintal for my onions,” says Suresh Karbhari Gaikwad a farmer we ran into at the Shree Sai Petrol Pump. That’s Rs. 2.11 for a kilo.

At petrol pumps along the Samruddhi Highway from Nagpur to Nashik, and in towns between Vaijapur in Sambhaji Nagar district, Yeola and Nashik, tractors and motorcycles queue late into the night waiting for diesel tankers to arrive. Several pumps visited by this reporter over the last week displayed boards announcing non-availability of diesel or petrol.

Smaller farmers are worse hit. Tractor owners renting out vehicles increasingly ask cultivators to arrange diesel themselves. Large farmers have begun storing diesel in drums and tanks. One onion farmer at Wani market in Nashik told PARI he had already stored nearly 2,000 litres.

Social media platforms across Maharashtra are flooded with videos showing tractors lined up overnight outside petrol pumps, arguments breaking out in queues, and farmers carrying cans from one station to another in search of diesel.

The scramble for diesel is also producing unexpected consequences.

Anees Pathan, 48, owns one acre in Shahpur village of Ambad tehsil in Jalna district. He supplements his farm income through wage labour. Recently, he has been using a pair of bullocks to furrow his field. “Tractor [rental] rates have gone up from 1,000 to 1,500 rupees per acre,” he says. “The bullocks take two days to do what tractors manage in half a day, but you save money,” Pathan tells us. There are perhaps 500 bullock pairs in and around Shahpur, he says.

“This year, most farmers here have already shifted to bullocks.”