The rains across Uttar Pradesh have pushed up the price of vegetables, leaving not just the consumers unhappy, but more so the farmers, vendors and consumers.
“Just ten days ago I sold turai (gourd) for seventy or eighty rupees for five kilos. Today I am selling it for up to hundred and twenty five rupees for five kgs,” Anil Varma, a vegetable vendor from Raitha village in Bakshi Ka Talab in Lucknow district, about 16 kilometres away from the state capital, Lucknow, told Gaon Connection. He bought 50 kgs of turai to sell from the Naveen Galla mandi in the capital city.
“Even ten days ago I sold a lot more so I made enough money, but now there is a shortage of vegetables and prices have gone up,” Varma told Gaon Connection. “Otherwise instead of just fifty kgs I would have easily sold about two quintals of produce each day,” he said
Potatoes that were sold in retail at Rs 15 a kg before October 17, are now going for anything up to Rs 25 a kg. Tomatoes that were around Rs 50 a kg are now selling at nearly Rs 90 a kg. Everything has gone up between 30 to 50 per cent. This is not just in urban areas, but also in the rural centres.
“Very few green vegetables are coming into the mandi,” Mohammad Mobin, a vegetable vendor from Fatehpur in Barabanki district, told Gaon Connection.
“In the last fortnight tomatoes that were selling wholesale at fifty rupees a kilo are now eighty rupees a kilo. Turai is selling for thirty rupees a kilo while before it was fifteen rupees a kilo. Lauki (bottle gourd) has doubled too. It was selling at ten rupees a piece and now it is going for twenty rupees a piece,” Mobin said.
It is raining trouble for vegetable farmers
Torrential rains in Uttar Pradesh between October 14 and 20 heavily damaged vegetable crops. In some areas, there are fears that nearly 90 per cent of the vegetables on the fields were damaged.
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Lucknow, Barabanki, Sitapur, Shahjahanpur, Pilibhit, Lakhimpur, Hapur, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Ayodhya, Kannauj, Kanpur and Mau and Gorakhpur in the Uttaranchal region of the state were battered by rains that ruined several standing crops. Delicate vegetables bore the brunt of the rain fury. Half a dozen districts are still reeling under the impact of the rains and flooding.
According to the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare, there was an expectation of a record production of fruits and vegetables this year.
In the second advance estimate of horticulture crops by the ministry of agriculture on July 15, in the year 2020-21, 329.86 million tonnes of horticultural produce was expected. Compared to the estimate in 2019-20 this was 9.39 million tonnes more.
However, the estimates ran aground because of incessant and untimely rains and floods in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal too, among other states.
“Not a single cauliflower survived,” Ashok Maurya, a cauliflower cultivator from Jarigawan in Sitapurdistrict, told Gaon Connection. “I had invested twenty five thousand rupees to cultivate cauliflower in one acre of land, and there is nothing to show for it,” he said.
Maurya also has a three-acre tomato nursery that was also considerably damaged, he said in the rains in the first week of October and then again between October 17 and 19.
“More than half the tomato nursery is gone. I had leased three acres of land at nearly a lakh of rupees to plant early tomatoes, but I can’t now,” Maurya said. He warned that the prices of vegetables would remain high because of this.
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The tomato crops in Barabanki have fared no better.
“I had transplanted tomatoes into my field and they were growing well. But they were damaged in the rains,” Ashish, a 35-year-old farmer from Baraiyya village in Barabanki, told Gaon Connection. “I have nothing left in my nursery to replant them,” he added.
Saugat Ali from Sauranga village in Barabanki, was in happy anticipation of a good sale during Diwali of his pumpkins. His crops were ready to be harvested and it looked like he could expect a promising profit. “Everything is dead. Not a single pumpkin survived,” Ali lamented. “All I can do now is think of clearing my land of these wasted crops and preparing it for my next sowing,” he said despondently.
Potato problems
According to the agriculture department of Barabanki, 8000 hectares of land are under green vegetable cultivation. Potatoes grow on 18,000 hectares. The officials of the agriculture department said that while potatoes were usually sown between October 20 and November 5, the rains this time has upset the schedule. The delay in sowing will have an adverse impact, they warned.
“Up to ten per cent of the crops have been damaged. The full extent of the damage can be ascertained only once the weather clears,” Saurabh Shukla, horticulture officer, Sitapur district, told Gaon Connection.
“There has been a leap in prices even in the mandis and it is bound to reflect in retail,” Rahul Gupta, wholesaler from Puranpur mandi, Pilibhit, told Gaon Connection “Unexpected rains have caused the huge price rise. Potatoes that were selling at nine hundred rupees a quintal are now selling at sixteen hundred rupees a quintal. Onions have risen from eighteen hundred a quintal to three thousand rupees a quintal. Prices are skyrocketing,”Gupta said.
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Devastating losses
The consequences of the rains have been devastating for some farmers more than others.
Fifty-five year old Nanhelal from Sagra village in Kannauj died by suicide on October 24. He took the extreme step as both his potato and paddy crop on his three acre land were destroyed in the rains.
“Nearly eighty per cent of Nanhelal’s crops were destroyed. We have sent a report on the damage to the district magistrate so that the deceased family can be compensated,” said Rakesh Tyagi, deputy collector, Tirwa Kannauj.
Kannauj district has nearly 50,000 hectares of land under potato cultivation. Farmers usually start sowing potatoes in the first half of September. The potatoes are usually ready to sell in about 60 days. But that was not to be this time. There have been unprecedented losses in the potato belt of the state.
With inputs from Virendra Singh from Barabanki, Mohit Shukla from Sitapur, Ajay Mishra from Kannauj
Read the story in Hindi
