NAGAPATTINAM: Farmers from the district have called upon the TNCSC to reduce the minimum requirement for mobile procurement of paddy from its current requirement of 320 bags. The requirements, farmers complain, is unfair to farmers who produce paddy in lesser quantities.
A mobile procurement system was brought in to aid farmers who face challenges in transporting their paddy to direct procurement centres, and includes a truck with equipment such as moisture metre and winnowing machine manned by TNCSC staff such as a quality controller and driver make a mobile procurement system.
Mobile procurement becomes necessary ahead of the monsoon, when it becomes hectic for farmers to transport the paddy to the direct procurement centres. However, the TNCSC ruling of a minimum of 320 bags for spot procurement of paddy has not pleased farmers, who have complained that it is impossible for small and marginal farmers to produce 320 bags of paddy.
SR Tamilselvan, a farmer representative from Palaiyur said, "This ruling will benefit only the big farmers, traders and middlemen. Small and marginal farmers will not be able to avail the services individually." TNCSC aims to procure around 50,000 metric tonnes of Kuruvai paddy across the district this year, and having so far procured around 24,000 metric tonnes, is aiming to procure the rest within a couple of weeks.
The current requirement for a mobile system to procure paddy is around 320 bags of paddy or 12.8 tons (each bag weighs around 40 kilos). A senior TNCSC official said, "The farmers could combine their produce, arrange for a bulk sale at a particular spot and inform us. We can send the trucks to the spot and procure in bulk quantities as we require."
The farmers, however, expressed that it would be easier to take each farmer's produce individually to direct procurement centres than to combine with other farmers and arrange for bulk procurement.