Helping farmers withstand crisis

Odisha has displayed a real sense of urgency in tackling the coronavirus outbreak and all plaudits coming its way seem fully justified. With 60 positive cases and a ramped-up testing facility, it has been very strategic in its approach. CM Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday went on record stating that the spread is going down in the state.

Having been the first to extend the lockdown to flatten the curve, Odisha also stayed ahead of others by offering exemption to the agriculture sector to cushion the impact of the lockdown for the farming community, its dominant population. In a move to kickstart the sector, it has given the go-ahead to agriculture, fisheries and animal husbandry while permitting transfer of farm implements, movement of agri-produce and paddy to mandis as well as operationalisation of cold storages. All such measures came two days before the Centre formally announced the nationwide lockdown extension and issued detailed guidelines on relaxations to be provided after April 20.

However well-intentioned these plans may be, the concerns of the farming community are far more deep-rooted. The lockdown restrictions have virtually immobilised them. Paddy procurement stopped last month and any possibility of it resuming soon looks distant in the absence of regulated market committees. Reports of cash crop growers resorting to distress sales are coming in fast from across the state. Major markets are yet to open and vegetable farmers, unable to sell their stock to traders, are taking to dumping them. Adding to their woes, scores of villages have set up barricades prohibiting movement of farmers. There is acute shortage of labour and transport vehicles as well.

As things stand today, the farming community is in for tough times because the current losses would reflect on their kharif plans, assuming the virus scare would have subsided by then. If the state government is really keen on protecting the farming sector, it would have to get down to micro-planning at district level, or the proactive measures would mean nothing.