Related Keywords: Chinese government, cotton belt, cotton sowing, cotton stockpiling policy, crop-subsidy programme, erratic rains, international cotton price, Maharashtra farmers, surplus cotton, Vidarbha farmers
Farmers in Maharashtra’s cotton belt forced to sow their fields a number of times due to erratic rains which has increased individual debts, as farmers who exhausted their institutional credit have borrowed money from informal moneylenders to finance the replanting of fields, raising the spectre of further deaths around harvest time.
Recent reports suggest the rainfall deficit in Maharashtra's cotton belts of Vidarbha and Marathwada has widened; Marathwada is now facing a 60 percent deficit, while the shortfall in Vidarbha is 23 per cent.
