Farmers Movement Archive

Bridge the gap

Farmers are facing problems on every front, be it availability of inputs, harvesting, inter-state movement of farm produce or procurement. Delhi’s Azadpur mandi, Asia’s biggest fruit and vegetable market, has witnessed a drop of over 50 per cent in the arrival of major fruits and vegetables in the past fortnight or so. With demand far outstripping supply, the prices of vegetable and fruits are set to spiral out of control.The arrivals have been hit partially due to the Centre’s focus on decongesting mandis to ward off coronavirus. With the aim of reducing the need for farmers to travel all the way to wholesale markets for selling their produce, the government recently enabled direct trading from warehouses as well as collection centres of farmer-producer organisations under the e-NAM (electronic national agriculture market) platform. However, this e-project, which was launched four years ago to achieve the ambitious goal of ‘one nation, one market’, continues to face hiccups in view of technological constraints and lack of awareness among farmers. A proposal by the Punjab Government regarding doorstep procurement of wheat has been dismissed as unfeasible by farmers as well as arhtiyas, who aver that there is no substitute for well-equipped mandis, provided adequate safety measures are in place on the premises. Centre-state and inter-state coordination is the need of the hour to ensure that the bumper harvest benefits all, right from the farmer to the consumer.

The Tribune

2020-04-11