Key Points

Ambadas Pawar has been a farmer for over 50 years and ploughing manually for the last 10 along with his wife, as he was forced to sell his oxen due to not being able to afford the animal's maintenance. He claimed that until now no one has come to help him and requested that his loan be waived off. Latur is also a drought prone area of the state.

"I have been farming for the last 50 years, but since it has not been possible for me to bear the expenses of oxen, I sold the oxen 10 years ago and have been the field with my own hands on my shoulders and working with my wife. No one has interfered for the last 10 years, but someone saw me ploughing the field and made a video and made it viral. After the video went viral, today the Latur district officer and the state minister contacted me," the farmer said.

Earlier, Latur district agriculture Superintendent Officer Shivsamb Ladke met with Pawar, assuring him of all the help possible, and also offering to give him farming literature provided under government schemes.

The farmer's hardship was highlighted when a video of him manually ploughing his fields was shown in a news report, Later, the Mumbai Congress posted about the farmer in a post on X.

"When he couldn't find oxen to plow the field, he turned himself into an ox... A heart-wrenching scene has emerged from Hadolti village in Latur district," the party's post read.

The farmer has demanded that the government help waive off his outstanding loans of Rs 40,000, saying that while he does have a son who works in the city, he does not get any help for him.

"I have not received any help from the government so far. I demand from the government that my loan of 40 thousand rupees of the society should be waived off. I have a son and a daughter. The son works in a private company in Pune city, from which he earns his livelihood but we do not get any benefit from it," he added.

The farmers wife, Muktabai Ambadas Pawar decried the meagre sums of money which they get from farming, claiming that the government does not do enough to help sustain the livelihoods of smaller farmers.

"We are 6 people in the whole house. The son works in a private company in another city. He does not get anything from us. We have 4.5 acres of land. We do not have bulls, husband and I plough the field by hand. If the government had given us a fair price for our crop, we would not have to plough by hand. If you see, the price of soybean fertilizer is 3 thousand per sack and if we have to sell it in the market, we get 4 thousand rupees. Then how to meet our expenses is the question before us," she told ANI.

She also reiterated the demand to waive off her husband's loan, along with other farmers.

Earlier on Wednesday, Congress MLA Nana Patole criticised the government for the increasing suicides of farmers in the state, accusing the government of not being able to control inflation.

Patole said, "The government has accepted that the farmers are committing suicide in Maharashtra...The cost of everything has increased, whether it's diesel, petrol, seeds, fertilisers or insecticides. The income of farmers is low, and that's why they are committing suicide."

- ANI