Farmers Movement Archive

Ahmednagar farmers dump tomatoes at Akole APMC

Nashik: The farmers in Ahmednagar district took cue from their counterparts in Nashik to protest against the crash in wholesale price of tomatoes and dumped their produce at the Akole APMC on Sunday. The price of wholesale tomatoes has crashed from Rs 400 per crate to Rs 50-60/crate over the last three-four weeks in all wholesale markets across Ahmednagar district. There are around 20kg tomatoes in every crate. Due to this, a section of angry farmers resorted to dumping their produce on the premises of the Samsherpur wholesale market in Akole. According to farmers, they have incurred heavy losses due to crash in wholesale price tomatoes and could not even recover transportation cost that forced them to throw away their produce. Ajit Navale, general secretary of All India Kisan Sabha (AIMS), said the sudden crash in wholesale price of tomatoes is leading to huge losses to the farmers.“We want the government to provide a grant of Rs 50,000 per acre to tomato farmers as relief,” he said. “Several tomato processing units have shut down during the last one-and-a-half years due to the Covid pandemic. Hence, the government needs to give some incentives to such units for revival as this will directly benefit the farmers. Moreover, efforts are also required from the central government to increase the export of tomatoes to neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal by removing the hurdles in export,” he added. According to traders, the arrival of tomatoes in the market has increased which has directly affected the wholesale price.

The Times of India

2021-08-30

Nashik