ROURKELA: Oblivious to the new farm laws and the raging protests at the national capital seeking their complete repeal, tribal farmers of Nuagaon block in Sundargarh district seem content carrying out intra and inter-State marketing of their horticulture crops since the last 20 years. They get immediate value for their produce and nothing matters to them as much.
Much before the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 (FPTC Act) came into being, the tribals have been selling their produce outside government mandis and market yards though without the desired price for lack of direct market linkage.
Natho Samad (45), a tribal horticulture farmer of Sorada in Nuagaon, has no knowledge about the protest or the new farm laws and wants intra and inter-State trading of his produce to continue. Samad has cultivated tomato, bean and other vegetables over nine acre of land including three acre of his own and the rest on mutual contract.
“Horticulture crops are being sent outside the district by traders of Nuagaon and Rourkela since many years. Though we do not get a fair price for our produce, the middlemen help us get ready cash without much effort. I feel farmers will be able to get good price for their crops if they have direct market access,” said Samad.
He informed that on Monday, he sold 25 kg of tomato to a local trader at the rate of `24 per kg while retail price of the vegetable at Rourkela was `50.
Sources said horticulture crops of Nuagaon block are exported to Jajpur, Keonjhar, Cuttack and a few other districts of Odisha besides Jharkhand and Bihar for the last two decades. With no cold storage option available, farmers’ best bet is to sell bulk crops at a bit less price and get ready cash without much effort.
A trader of Nuagaon Sudhir Sahu said the general notion that local traders make huge profits is wrong. “After harvest, I lift the crops directly from the field at a price which prevails in Nuagaon and send the produce to intra or inter-State destinations. Profitability of farmers depends on prevailing market price besides quality and quantity of yields in a crop season,” he added.
Nuagoan panchayat samiti member Gajendra Sahu said, till four years back, Nuagaon’s tomato was getting exported to Pakistan. After the Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, intra and inter-State trading of vegetables are rising gradually, he said.