The situation for banana farmers in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh has become so severe that many are now destroying their own ready harvest. Prices in the market have fallen so sharply that farmers cannot even recover what they spent on seeds, labour, fertiliser, and irrigation. After months of hard work, they are watching their entire effort collapse in front of them.
In Hatnawar village in Dharampuri, the despair is visible everywhere. With no buyers coming to the village, farmers cultivating large banana fields are using tractors to uproot fully grown plants and throw them away. They say they have no other choice left.
For months, farmers in this village cared for their banana crop with hope. They protected every plant, waited for the fruit to grow, and expected a fair price at the end of the season. But when it was time to sell, the market offered nothing, and the farmers were forced to destroy what they had grown.
Farmer Yashpal Solanki stood beside the remains of what he had once proudly cultivated. His voice shook as he said, “I planted around fifteen thousand to sixteen thousand banana plants, but because there was no fair price, I had to uproot and throw five thousand of them. The crop was ready, but no one came to buy it.” His words sounded more hurt than angry, as he tried to describe the helplessness of watching his work go to waste.
Another farmer, Satyam Darbar, who planted bananas on seventeen bighas of land, also suffered the same loss. He invested lakhs of rupees and months of labour, but the harvest brought nothing back. He said the prices offered by traders were so low that they felt like an insult rather than payment. Farmers in Hatnawar say the damage is not just financial but emotional as well, because they had to destroy something they had cared for with their own hands.
This crisis has come just days after Chief Minister Mohan Yadav announced that the government plans to set up factories to make textiles from banana stems, fibres, and leaves. He said, “We are preparing to set up a textile factory using banana stems, fibres, and leaves. Textiles will be made from banana crop waste.”
Madhya Pradesh is the seventh largest banana producing state in India. The state grows nearly two and a half million metric tons of bananas every year, which is more than six per cent of the country’s total production. But farmers say that even though production is high, their income remains uncertain, and they continue to face losses year after year.
