‘How do you expect farmers to survive’

Ganesh Shinde’s prized possession is a red tractor he purchased in the year 2022. A cotton farmer in Khali village of Maharasthra’s Parbhani district, Shinde cultivates the two acres of land he owns. But with the price of cotton declining steeply in recent years, Shinde has been compelled to look for additional sources of income – which led him to purchase the tractor for Rs. 8 lakhs on a loan from a public sector bank.

“I drive my tractor to Gangakhed town 10 kilometres from my house and wait at the junction,” says the 44-year-old farmer. “People hire my services if they are carrying out construction work nearby and need a vehicle to transport items like sand. It fetches me anywhere between 500 and 800 rupees on days I get work.” Before leaving for Gangakhed in the morning, Shinde spends at least a couple of hours tending to his farm.

He has keenly followed the Union Budget of 2025. This, Shinde says, is not because he has particularly high hopes from it but because he has little to do while waiting for people to hire his tractor services. “The allocation for MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005) has remained the same,” he says. A former sarpanch of Khali, Shinde adds that MNREGA has made little difference on the ground. “The money is hardly used to generate employment. It is all on paper.”

The declining price of cotton has made it difficult for farmers like Shinde to sustain themselves. In the year 2022, for instance, a quintal of cotton fetched Rs. 12,000. In 2024, this crashed to as low as Rs. 4,000 in some areas in Maharashtra.

In the current budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed a “Mission for Cotton Productivity” spanning five years, allocating Rs. 5,272 crores for the Ministry of Textiles for 2025-26 – a 19 per cent jump from the previous year. This, she claimed, “will increase income of farmers and augment a steady supply of quality cotton”.

“The budget merely pretends to cater to the poor but benefits only the rich,” says Shinde, not optimistic about this proposed mission. “Fuel is getting more and more expensive. Our income is stagnant and even decreasing,” he adds, “how do you expect farmers to survive?”