One of the villages likely to be wiped out by the Machilipatnam port project is this tiny village 3 km from the town.
Blessed with a sandy soil that is the right blend of loam, 50 farmers in this village cultivate a prized variety of green bell peppers, the vegetable we know as capsicum, on their 30 acres of land. The green bell pepper is a cultivar of the species we know as Capsicum annuum.
One of the few places in the country where this vegetable of high commercial value is grown, Pothepalli now lies under the cloud of land acquisition for the Machilipatnam port project, for which 14,500 acres are being taken over.
Horticulture officer J. Jyothi says the variety grown here is an open-pollinated seed and not the usual hybrid variety. It is prone to many diseases, and that’s the reason farmers avoid the risk. The farmers of Pothepalli have perfected the art of managing that risk and prospered for it, she says. “We have no clue on how the seed came to the village and how these farmers learnt to nurse the variety. The farmers have learnt to leave their fields fallow for one season so that the soil fertility is retained.”
It’s high-cost cultivation. Just the input costs and the irrigation can go up to Rs. 50,000 per acre, says Katikela Rajesh, a tenant farmer and exporter. He is a young farmer who exports the variety to markets in Karnataka and Visakhapatnam and the Godavari districts in Andhra Pradesh.
The returns are high too, if risky. The profits can range up to Rs 100,000 per acre.
The majority of these farmers are tenants, and the lease is as high as Rs. 30,000 per acre per season. Harvests are a continuing affair, something twice a week, says farmer K. Hari.
