Hazaribag: Even as the state government is gearing up to start paddy procurement to offer minimum support price (MSP) to farmers for their produce, many farmers in Hazaribag are selling their harvest at throwaway prices to middlemen citing delays in procurement and problems of storing their produce due to non-availability of storage points.
Shankar, a farmer in Sadar block, said, “Good monsoon ensured better khariff produce this year, but we are forced to sell it at Rs 1,280 - Rs 1,325 to traders to ensure we don’t have to incur losses.” Another farmer, Deo Narayan, rued that the government was yet to pay the farmers for 70,000 metric tonnes of paddy sold at procurement centres. “Even though middlemen and traders pay us less than the MSP, they give us money in hand, unlike government procurement centres,” he said.
Sources said several traders and middlemen from as far as Telangana are visiting Hazaribag to directly purchase paddy from farmers at rates much below the government-prescribed MSP. A trader from the southern state, unwilling to be named, said, “We have already loaded 800 metric tonnes of paddy at the reserved rakes from the railways to take them to rice mills in Hyderabad. We are buying directly from farmers at negotiable rates.”
District agriculture officer Rajendra Kishore said paddy was produced on 82,884 hectares this year against the target of 84,000 hectares in the district. In terms of tonnage, 2.8 lakh metric tonne paddy has been produced. Agriculture officials appealed farmers to hold on to their yield for a few weeks to avoid being duped. Deputy commissioner Aditya Kumar Anand said, “We are in the process of finalizing procurement centres which will become operational soon.”