The prices of vegetables and fruits have fluctuated the most since the
announcement of a 21-day lockdown in the country. In the last 10 days, the prices of vegetables, fruits in cities have doubled, whereas the farmers are paid pittance for the same. In many places, there is no buyer for the crops so the angry farmers are feeding their produce to cattle or dumping them on the streets, but the question is, when the farmers are not getting the price of vegetables and fruits, why are the prices so high in cities?
Gajanand Yadav, a farmer from village Andarh in District Khargon, Tehsil Bikhangaon, about 126 kms away from Indore in Madhya Pradesh, has left about five quintal Okra to be eaten by the villagers.
On asking why he did this, Gajanand said: “Khargon’s mandi is about 40 kms far and Indore mandi 120 kms away. I am not able to go to either. The congestion in the local mandi in the village is so high that the prices of vegetables have plummeted. I had to harvest about five quintal okra from the field yesterday (March 30), but to what use? The price of okra in the nearby mandi is Rs 2 per kilo, who would sell in this price after toiling the entire day picking it. So, I have left my farm free for the villagers to help themselves.”
Last year, Gajanind, who made good profits from vegetable cultivation, is now regretting. “My vegetables used to go to the mandis of Delhi. The big traders buy from Indore, but my vehicle could not go to Indore mandi. The policemen are not letting the vehicles pass to another district. Last year this time, the price of okra was Rs 20 to 25 per kilo. Cucumber is also selling at Re 1 a kilo. By and large, this year, there is a loss of Rs 3-4 lakh,” he added.
Gajanand has cultivated okra in three acres and cucumber in one acre this year. Every other day, about five quintal okra is coming out of his field, which has been left in the field for the past two times. Now, if last year’s price is Rs 20 per kilo, he is losing Rs 10,000 every other day.
About 350 kms away from Khargon, Rajesh Mokadam, a farmer living in Anesar tehsil of Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh, cultivates oranges but his condition is similar to that of vegetable farmer Gajanand.
“Although our oranges get sold by December, oranges in my trees came late. This was the time to earn some money, but there is no taker for orange in the mandi. The mandi of Pandhurna is about 45 kilometres from where I live. Traders come here, taking oranges to other regions, but since the corona onset, the vehicles are not coming. Here, locally one orange is getting 50 paise to one rupee, whereas one and a half months ago, the price was four rupees per orange.”
Meanwhile, in the nation capital New Delhi, Saurabh Dubey, living in New Ashoka Nagar had bought the two-rupee okra on March 31 at Rs 40 a kilo and oranges at 100 rupees a kilo with eight pieces. He complained: “A couple of days into lockdown, nothing could be found in the market and now the price has doubled. The Rs 20 potato is costing Rs 40. The price of okra costing Rs 20-25 earlier has gone up to Rs 40. The price of fruits has also increased arbitrarily.”
In view of the increasing cases of corona virus in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown on March 23. Due to this lockdown, the farmers are suffering a lot of damage. The farmers are not able to reach the mandis with fruits and vegetables, due to which their crop is wasted, whereas they are getting very low prices because of the high arrivals in the local mandis. The supply to the major mandis of the country has decreased due to which the price of vegetables and fruits in cities has increased from 40 to 50 per cent.
Aman Kumar, owner of Deep Vegetable Company and a major vegetable trader in Nanded district of Maharashtra, said: “There is no access to the mandi. I used to receive farmers from afar bringing me their vegetables. Since the lockdown, the arrivals have become non-existent. I don’t know what farmers would be doing with those vegetables.”
In the past days, two videos on social media had gone viral, in which a farmer from Rajasthan, had his two trolley cucumbers feed to the cattle and a farmer from Karnataka had buried a trolley of grape in the ground.
Balmunkund Dangi, a farmer living in Jhalawar district of Rajasthan, informed: “On March 25, we had picked up about 40 quintals of cucumber. If it could reach Jaipur mandi, it could have gotten me at least Rs 60,000, but the police did not let the vehicle go ahead. I was forced to throw my cucumber in front of cows in a nearby goshala.” The village of Baralamukund is in Baron, Pidawa Tehsil, which is about 400 kms away from Jaipur.
When asked about the difficulties being faced in reaching the mandi, Balmunkund said: “We have heard that the government has said that the mandis will remain open, the farmers will be able to do their job, but there is so much fear of the police that the transporter are not running the trucks. Baralamakadi turns pensive towards the end. He said: “I have rented a greenhouse. How would I pay for it? Now, you see, while people in the city are buying such expensive vegetables, the farmer is losing millions. The government should issue passes for the farmers or else we would run into a lot of losses.”
Similar is the plight of the grape farmer Munisham Appa of Chikkballapur district of Karnataka. His son Venkat Krishanappa informs Gaon Connection over the phone “I took about 15 tonnes (150 quintals) grapes, but nobody bought grapes because of shortage of trucks. We thought why not bury it in our fields, at least it would do the job of manure.”
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, Karnataka is the second largest producer of grapes in the country after Maharashtra. Chikkballapur and Kollar district are the largest grape producing districts in Karnataka.
“In Chikkballapur alone, farmers cultivate grapes in about 2,000 acres. About 30,000 tonnes (three lakh quintal) grapes are ready to be sold in the market, but buyers are not able to come. In one acre, the farmers spend Rs 3-4 lakh. The grape farmers of Chikkballapur and Kollar are going to lose at least Rs 500 to 600 crore this year. The lockdown is causing a lot of damage. We want the government to make such an arrangement that the grapes sold for Rs 70-80 should be sold at least at Rs 30-40 per kilo,” said Kottur Srianvasan, leader of the Rayata Kisan Sangh, Karnataka.
The retail price of grapes in Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow is Rs 100 to 120 per kilo. Similarly, the prices of other fruits are also increasing. Apple prices have also gone up by 20 to 25 per cent.
Manoj Dubey, who is residing in New Delhi, is a big trader and exporter of fruits. He said: “The prices of apples in fruits have now increased by 25 to 30 per cent. I am selling the apples that I kept in the cold storage. Although there is demand in the market, there isn’t much supply. Due to this, the prices have come down sharply. The apple coming from Kashmir has totally stopped.”
In India, apples are produced in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. The season ends in November, but the farmers put apples in cold storage and begin taking them out from the last days of March in hope of a good price, but because of the ongoing lockdown, they are not able to send goods to other parts of the country.
Imtiaz Yaru, an Apple farmer from Jammu and Kashmir, said: “We are already in loss. For so many days, everything was closed, the weather also hit us and then began the lockdown. I was going to Siliguri on March 25 with 1,193 boxes of apples but I was stopped in Lakhan. Coming back, I put the apples back in cold storage. This is the only season when we earn but corona has spoiled it for us.”
Imtiaz is a resident of Koharu village, Kupwara tehsil and has apple trees in the area of 15 canals. A canal has an average of 13 to 14 trees. According to other parts of the country, one acre has eight canals.
Farmers who cultivate perishable vegetables other than fruits are currently
suffering the most. The farmers who cultivate lauki, tomato, coriander and brinjal are either feeding their produce to animals or giving up harvesting altogether. “I have cultivated green chillies in about one and a half acres. Now it is time to sell it, but the price of chilli in the Kachwan mandi is Rs 10-12 kg. I have produced about 25-30 quintals, it would cost me far more to pick it and take it to mandi. So, I have left the chilli on the fields, selling it is not going to help. Last year, there was a profit around Rs. 80 thousand. This year, there would only be a loss,” said Rahul Pandey, a farmer living in the village of Vidapur, block Kachwan in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh.
The Kachwan region of Mirzapur is famous for chilli cultivation in Purvanchal, and Kanchwa Mandi is one of the largest vegetable mandis in Purvanchal. From here, almost all the 17 districts of the east are supplied with vegetables. The cultivation of fruits and vegetables in India is continuously increasing.
According to data from the Indian Ministry of Agriculture, India had a vegetable production of 101.2 million tonnes in 2004-05, which increased to 184.40 million tonnes in 2017-18. Similarly, the total yield of fruits in 2004-05 was 50.9 tonnes which rose to 97.35 million tonnes in 2017-18.
Chandra Sen, agricultural economist at Banaras Hindu University, said: “Being a cash crop, millions of farmers in the country are cultivating fruits and vegetables, but this is a difficult moment for them. All this coupled with the weather, is going to harm the farmers. The government must look into it urgently. It is also to be noted that small farmers are more involved in vegetable cultivation and will not be able to suffer so much. It will have a very bad impact upon these farmers in the coming time.”
