New Delhi: Former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda on Monday (May 24) wrote a letter to PM Narendra Modi drawing his attention to the plight of horticulture farmers who have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic as the prices of their produce has crashed.
Gowda urged the prime minister to ask the agriculture and horticulture departments in states to find a solution to help the farmers. He suggested the central government to actively participate in the process.
“COVID reaching rural India is a worrying problem but crashing prices of horticulture produce is delivering a twin blow to rural masses and is affecting their small yet self-sustained livelihoods,” wrote Gowda in the letter.
He pointed out that recently the farmers in Kolar were seen dumping their tomato produce because it did not fetch them a good price.
“I have read similar reports of fruits, vegetables and flowers being either dumped, crushed or abandoned from Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala,” he said.
“The reason for prices to fall are varied but in general the market network is broken, access to market has been hindered due to lockdowns,” he added.
Gowda stressed that the larger policy issue was that horticulture products are not served by the Minimum Support Price (MSP) mechanism.
He noted that horticulture products are perishable and there are no elaborate cold storage facilities.
Gowda further said that the states which are already burdened with procuring vaccines and building infrastructure to deal with the pandemic are left with little funds to help the small and medium horticulture farmers.
Bureau Report
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