States »SoutPosted at: Apr 25 2021 12:18PM Horticulture farmers bear the brunt of Corona restrictions
Vijayawada, Apr 24 (UNI) The second wave of Coronavirus pandemic badly affected the horticulture farmers as the trading activities have fallen drastically at various market yards in Andhra Pradesh.
Due to the massive spread of Coronavirus in the second wave, agricultural markets yards at various towns were closed forcing the trading to come to a grinding halt. Since restrictions were imposed in the other states, the traders have stopped buying agricultural produce forcing the farmers to halt the harvesting of crops.
Though there is remunerative price for red chillies, the mirch market yard, located in Guntur which is the biggest market yard in the country, was closed for five days. The farmers of Guntur and neighbouring districts have brought hundreds of tonnes of dried chillies to the market yard but they did not find buyers, at the same time five day closure was announced.
Though the farmers yielded a bumper chilli produce this year, the farmers are unable to sell the produce now. Some farmers did not even harvest the crop as they are unable to sell.
Mr.S Narayana Rao, a chilli farmer said that up to two lakh bags of dried chillies are brought to the Guntur market yard by the farmers. At the crucial time, the market yard declared a five days holiday in view of the massive spread of Coronavirus, which came as a blow to the farmers. The farmers expressed fears that if there was further delay in selling their produce, the quality of the produce would decline that would lead to crumbling of price.
“The price of good quality dried chilli crumbled by Rs.1000 in five days”, a farmer said at the market yard. The farmers said that the cold storages are also full and they could not preserve their produce there now.
In Anantapur district, the sweet orange produce started coming to the market. The farmers, a few days ago, sold their orange produce at Rs.54,000 per tonne. Since the markets in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and other major cities were either closed or reduced trading activity due to Coronavirus, the prices of orange produce fell to Rs.50,000 per tonne by three days.
Till last week, over 700 tonnes of sweet orange was being sold in the market yard by traders, agriculture officials said, adding that the trading activity was very dull now.
The mango farmers also bore the brunt of the pandemic as the exports of mangoes was reduced by 50 percent at the mango market located at the outskirts here. Since Corona restrictions were imposed in many major cities the traders are not willing to buy mangoes, N Suryanarayana Murthy a mango farmer said. The mangoes were brought by wholesale traders at Rs.90,000 per tonne 10 days ago but the price has fallen to Rs.50,000 now.
UNI DP JAL 1217