What a waste!

It’s an unpleasantly familiar sight — ripe, farm-fresh vegetables strewn on the road, getting squashed under the tyres of passing vehicles or being devoured by stray animals. Distress dumping of their produce is the farmers’ last resort, when they have been left in the lurch by one and all — the government, the middlemen, the consumers. The ongoing lockdown has severely disrupted the supply chain and sharply brought down the demand — a double whammy for the growers. On Tuesday, farmers of Bhaini Bagha village in Punjab’s Mansa district threw their capsicum on the highway as they were being paid barely Rs 2/kg, a pittance by any standards and nowhere near the price of Rs 50-60/kg that the end user would shell out. The price crash in wholesale markets has spelt doom especially for those who won’t be able to even recover their input costs.

The signs have been ominous during the past few weeks, but the remedial steps have been inadequate. Days after the lockdown was imposed in late March, Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi — Asia’s biggest wholesale market for fruits and vegetables and the main supplier for the northern region — witnessed a 53 per cent drop in the volume of arrivals. The death of a commission agent, who succumbed to Covid-19 last week, and the detection of at least 10 other positive cases in the mandi set the alarm bells ringing. Even as the curbs on procurement and transportation have been gradually eased, the authorities are struggling to strike a balance between enforcing safety norms and streamlining the supply.

The Centre claimed earlier this week that around 80 per cent of the major agricultural wholesale markets were operating in the country amid the lockdown. However, the purpose of this humongous exercise is defeated if farmers don’t get remunerative prices for their crops. What’s worse, heavy ‘value cuts’ in the wheat MSP are being imposed while relaxing specifications for shrivelled grain and lustre loss caused by unseasonal rain. This is no way to repay the community that has been feeding the nation against all odds. The farmer must get his due, lest he take any extreme step.

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