Delays push farmers to distress sale of paddy

Delay in the procurement of paddy at the IKP procurement centres and also non-procurement at the agricultural marketyards, was forcing farmers to resort to distress sale of paddy fearing damage to their hard-earned produce due to the expected unseasonal rains.

Following the arrivals of large quantities at the marketyards the officials have temporarily stalled the procurement till they clear the yard and send the procured crop to rice mills and or godowns. Further, procurement was delayed at IKP and PACS (primary agricultural cooperative societies) procurement centres due to shortage of labour and lack of storage space.

Following unseasonal rains that drenched the stocked paddy at the market yards many farmers resorted to distress sale to rice mills instead of waiting for three to four days for the procurement of their produce at the IKP and PACS centres. “If we wait at the IKP centres, we are not sure when the rains would come and damage our crop. Hence, we approached the millers directly instead of losing the crop in the rains,” said Mudiganti Venkat Reddy, a farmer of Challur village of Veenavanka mandal.

He sold 250 quintals of paddy to the miller in the process suffering a loss of ₹ 20,000, which includes transportation, labour charges and deduction of 2.5 kilograms weight per quintal by miller on the grounds of foreign bodies and moisture content, among others.

Similarly, several farmers approached the millers for selling their produce for a lesser amount than the minimum support price fixed by the government. Sadasiva Reddy of Manakondur mandal said that he resorted to distress sale apprehensive of the loss of the crop due to the delay in the procurement at the marketyards and the IKP procurement centres.

On the other hand, the officials have opened only 172 procurement centres against the announced 187 centres. The centres have so far procured only 5.68 lakh quintals during the last 20 days.