That the State Assembly, which met for a day on Monday, did not take note of the suicide by a deeply indebted pineapple farmer last week is an indication of how the political class continued to ignore the farmers, Pineapple Growers’ Association president Baby John has said.
He was speaking to The Hindu after a protest meeting was organised by the community in Vazhakkulam, about 30 km east of Kochi, to register their anguish over the suicide by K. K. Anil, from Ayavana, near the town.
Neither the ruling political front nor the Opposition found it important to raise the issue in the Assembly, he said, as he appealed to fellow farmers to be more politically articulate. Farmers should get more organised to make the political leadership take note of their desperate situation, he said.
The COVID-19 lockdown has rained misery on the pineapple sector, which is worth about ₹1,200 crore annually.
More than 5,000 farmers across Kerala are engaged in pineapple cultivation and the sector may have lost between ₹400 and ₹450 crore due to the pandemic. The losses came largely due to loss of ripe fruits as well as neglect of standing crop as thousands of workers from other States went home in the wake of the pandemic.
The protest meeting, held in front of the Manjalloor Krishi Bhavan, demanded that the government come to the aid of the family of the farmer, who killed himself in despair in the midst of mounting debts.
A moratorium on the loans taken by the farmers as well as fixing a floor price for pineapple were some of the other demands raised by those participating in the protest meeting. Manjalloor panchayat president M. J. George; Pineapple Farmers’ Association president James George; Pineapple Merchants’ Association president Jose Perumpallykkunnel and General Merchants’ Association secretary Siju Thanikkal were among those who participated in the protest.
Meanwhile, the price of pineapple, apparently buoyed by a drastic dip in production, moved up marginally on Tuesday to ₹20 - ₹21 a kg for the A grade raw fruit in the Vazhakkulam market. Ripe fruit was fetching ₹24 a kg. This was just above the break-even level, said a farmer.
With the lockdown bringing life to a halt in upmarket destinations such as Mumbai, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Delhi, production has dipped to about 25 per cent of the normal levels. In the place of about 100 lorry-loads of the tropical fruit leaving the Vazhakkulan wholesale market per day during this time of the year, the number has come down to 20 to 25 loads.