Bathinda: Cotton growers protest against pest attack
Angered by the growing problem of pink bollworm in Malwa region, hundreds of farmers led by BKU (Ekta Ugra) leader Jagdev Singh Jogewala staged a protest outside the District Agriculture Officer's office here on Monday.
They also brought with them the destroyed cotton crop. Farmers claimed that pink bollworm had destroyed 80 to 90 percent of the cotton crop, but the agriculture department was still in deep sleep.
Jogewala said that there has been a widespread attack of pink bollworm in Bathinda and Mansa districts. He said it was similar to the whitefly attack of 2015, when most of the cotton crop was destroyed. He alleged that the agriculture department was underestimating the damage caused by the pink bollworm to hide its failure.
Meanwhile, farmer leaders Kulwinder Singh Giana and Kulwant Sharma alleged that fake Bt cotton seeds were given to growers this time, which led to the pink bollworm attack. He said that this has been done by the big companies and the government under an agreement with the corporate houses. "This is a step to grab our land."
The protesters said they would be forced to plow their cotton crop in the coming days and demanded a high-level probe into the Bt seeds case.
The farmers further said that after Bathinda and Mansa, the pest outbreak had started in other districts as well. He said farmers have sprayed pesticides three to four times so far, but the pink worm is still present. The leaders demanded that the Punjab government should give a special compensation of Rs 60,000 per acre to the farmers.
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