Lockdown: Puri farmer sits on a 40-tonne pumpkin stock tragedy
BHUBANESWAR: Farmers across of the State are in distress. Vegetables have ripened and are rotting on the field. Farmers are staring a huge losses due to lockdown enforced bottlencks like lack of transportation and mandi operations. All this at a time when farm-gate prices are plunging and vegetable prices in major markets of the State have almost doubled. Battered by the COVID-19 are thousands of farmers of the State.
Samarendra Singh (53), a progressive farmer of Gop in Puri district, is looking at an uncertain future as his entire produce is going to be wasted.
“I have a stock of about 40 tonnes of pumpkin but there are no buyers. Truckers refused to transport it to Puri and Bhubaneswar, two major markets of vegetable, on the plea that drivers are not available. But, the real reason is that no one is ready to venture out due to police harassment,” said Singh. With no cold storage facilities, one to two quintals of pumpkins are rotting everyday and Singh is helpless.
“I approached the wholesalers at Aiginia, the major vegetable mandi in Bhubaneswar, but they expressed their inability as they were not sure about the disposal of such a huge quantity of the vegetable in the prevailing situation,” Singh rued. For Singh Shree Jagannath Temple is a major client. There is a drastic fall in the vegetable demand of the temple after the lockdown as preparation of ‘bhoga’ has been bare minimum due to restriction on devotees and pilgrims.
The Capital is another major market for Singh but he has lost hope as no assistance is coming from the administration for smooth supply of essential goods. “The State Government’s repeated assertion that there is no restriction on movement of essential goods, including vegetables is of no use when farmers and farm labourers are not allowed to harvest, go to market yards and prevented from buying,” he said. Singh has grown pumpkin on 8 acres of land at an investment of `4 lakh. He had taken a loan of `2 lakh from private money lenders and arranged the balance from banks at two to three pc interest.
“With a bumper yield this season I was expecting to earn around `7 to`8 lakh from pumpkin alone. However, my dream was dashed as no support is forthcoming from the Government to facilitate transportation of vegetables,” he said. A large number of farmers of the State are facing situation similar to Singh. This is the season when farmers of Bargarh district make a hay by selling pointed gourd in the coastal districts where the vegetable was harvested in May.