Farmers lament as Guntur mirchi yard closes for 5 days

GUNTUR: The NTR Market Yard in Guntur, which is flooded with mirchi (red chillies) stock, is closed for five days till April 25.  No fresh arrivals will be allowed into the yard and priority would be accorded to clear  up the piled up stocks. Apart from the piling of stocks, the incidence of Covid-19 infections among some staff and traders is said to the main reason for the closure of the yard.

The mirchi season has started from the last week of March and will end on May 15. Truckloads of mirchi are arriving in the Asia’s largest mirchi yard in large quantities compared to the previous seasons. The officials are saying that such huge stock piling up in the yard is unusual. 

Following a bumper yield, lack of exports due to Covid-19 and the consecutive holidays in the first and second weeks of this month contributed to the piling of stocks, they said. Along with the already existing stocks of 3.5 lakh bags of mirchi, as on Tuesday, the yard currently has about 4 lakh bags of mirchi stock. To clear up the stock, the officials have closed the yard for five days. 

Mirchi Yard chairperson Chandragiri Yesuratnam told TNIE unlike previous seasons, the mirchi arrivals are very heavy this year. The farmers from Rayalaseema districts, Prakasam, and from neighbouring States are coming to Guntur yard to sell their produce. And due to Covid-19, the exports are at a snail pace. As mirchi is available in abundant quantity in the the yard, some merchants are attempting to exploit the farmers by buying their produce at low costs. 

“The farmers who couldn’t enter the market due to heavy traffic and stocks in the yard are now left with no choice than to sell the produce at low costs. In order to provide a level playing field to the farmers, we declared holidays to clear up the existing stocks,” he said. 

The farmers from distant places have booked the storages in advance last week, a cold storage owner said. However, the farmers are hopeful that, by next week, the prices may rise. The prices of all varieties of mirchi decreased by as much as `1,000 this week. 

“On April 21 and 22, business will take place as usual, only the farmers will not be allowed to bring their produce. Hopefully, we expect that by next Monday, the stocks will be cleared up and the rush will also be reduced. We have already informed the farmers in advance and asked them to make arrangements likewise. Also as a few corona positive cases have been reported this week, we will get a chance to sanitise the whole premises thoroughly during when the yard is closed, he added. On the other hand, as many as 53 cold storages are present in the city and most of them are filled to the brim with mirchi.