BENGALURU: Law Minister T B Jayachandra on Wednesday criticised the Centre for refusing to support states on market intervention to help farmers hit by the fall in farm produce prices.
“This will cause irreparable damage to the interests of farmers,” he told reporters. The minister, who is also chairman of the Cabinet Sub-committee on Agriculture and Horticulture Prices, said the Centre’s stand on the issue was “anti-farmer” and could have serious consequences. “We need to discuss the issue politically in the party forum also,” he said.
“Because of this negative attitude, we had to scale down the procurement price of maize from `1,300 to `1,100 (per tonne),” he said.
Jayachandra added that while the state used to procure over 8 lakh quintals of maize a year at `1,300 a tonne, with the reduced procurement price, farmers have sold just around 19,000 quintals this year.
