In lockdown, farmers despair about future

The plight of Kumar, Sigh and Hiregudar illustrates a larger problem confronting India -- a disruption of the agricultural supply chain -- in the aftermath of the nationwide, three-week lockdown.

Vegetable farmer Jagdish Kumar cultivates cabbage and cauliflower on his farm inTheog, in Himachal Pradesh’s Shimla district . The crop is ready for harvest, but Kumar has a problem:there are no farm workers around in the village.

A farmer, feeds strawberries to his cow during a 21-day nationwide lockdown to slow the spreading of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at Darewadi village in Satara district in the western state of Maharashtra.(REUTERS)

“Even if I myself harvest the produce, there is no way I can send it to the market [for lack of transport]. It will rot in fields, I have no option,” Kumar said.

In neighbouring Punjab’s Ludhiana, Sukhwinder Singh, who grows cauliflower and peas, is confronting the same problem.”We have a large amount of vegetables waiting to be moved out of our fields. We need to remove them to prepare the fields for the upcoming kharif (monsoon crop) season but there is no labour,” Singh said.

Down south, in Karnataka’s Koppal, grape farmer Sharanabasappa Hiregoudar is heartbroken -- he is letting a bountiful harvest of seedless grapes on his seven-acre plot rot on the vines. In previous years, he has sold them at Rs 23-25 a kg; this year, he was offered Rs 2-3.

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The plight of Kumar, Sigh and Hiregudar illustrates a larger problem confronting India -- a disruption of the agricultural supply chain -- in the aftermath of the nationwide, three-week lockdown that took effect on March 25 as part of an attempt to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

The lockdown prompted an exodus of migrant workers back home to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal from the farming states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, depriving farmers of labour to harvest their crops. Transport too has been disrupted because of strict enforcement of the lockdown by the police although essential services are exempt from the restrictions.

In many states such as Karnataka, Assam and West Bengal, there have been reports of farmers dumping their vegetables and milk because of the absence of buyers and a dip in the prices of fruits and vegetables.

In Haryana’s Yamunanagar district, farmer Sushil Kumar of Radaur village sold cauliflower for Rs 10 per kg on Wednesday compared to Rs 24-27 per kg before the lockdown came into effect.

Minister of state for animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries Sanjeev Kumar Balyan admitted to problems in these sectors, adding that the central government has already issued an advisory allowing the transportation of all farm and dairy products.

“We have also asked cooperatives to purchase more milk from farmers. Already, the collection has increased by 8% since the lockdown started,” he said.

States governments have been asked to operate wholesale markets to ensure supplies across India even as Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh have deferred procurement of rabi (winter) crops. Uttarakhand has allowed harvest because wheat is ripening in the terai belt bordering Uttar Pradesh. Karnataka has asked its horticultural co-operative to open more centres.

In Uttar Pradesh, farmers have not able to sell their produce since March 22, the day of the Janata Curfew, said two of them, Satendra Pal of Malihabad and Aslam Khan of Dubagga. Similar reports came in from Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan.

A food industry representative, who requested anonymity, said factories engaged in processing and producing packaged foods were running at half their capacity primarily because of a shortfall in the supplies of raw materials. He said input provisions were running at a fifth of the normal supplies. A major dip in supplies from farmers has disrupted the entire chain from markets to wholesale buyers to factories, this person said.

According to the agriculture ministry’s website, agmarknet.gov.in, which monitors daily arrivals and sales at various wholesale markets, the arrivals after the lockdown have dipped by up to 70%. For instance, at the Azadpur market in New Delhi, 132,000 tonnes of cabbage arrived on March 1; this fell to 19,500 tonnes on March 31.

Similarly, cauliflower arrivals in Mumbai’s wholesale markets totalled 145,000 tonnes on March 1. On March 31, just 17,200 tonnes arrived. In states with poorer road connectivity such as West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha, the arrival of several vegetables was in single digits in tonnes, a fall of 80% since March 1.

Narender Thakur, a vegetable merchant in Shimla’s fruit and vegetable wholesale market, said that everyday arrivals at the market had dipped by around 50% since the nationwide lockdown took effect.

Dairies

While vegetable farmers are struggling to sell their produce, milk producers in states that do not have a strong cooperative network of collection centres and milk processing units, such as the one that exists in Gujarat, are in dire straits.

Ajit Singh, a dairy owner in Uttar Pradesh’s Gosaiganj, said the demand for milk has declined because sweet shops were closed. “I use to sell milk for Rs 50 per litre but now I am not getting even Rs 25-30 per litre. I am left with no option but to throw unsold milk,” he said.

In Karnataka, unverified videos emerged of people purportedly dumping 1,500 litres of milk into a drain and a river in Belgavi. Similar videos were put up on social media from West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Sixty per cent of the milk produced in Bengal every day is used by confectioners, but with eateries, most of the milk is going waste. “One of the main reasons behind this crisis is that retail outlets are either closed because of the lockdown or operating only for limited hours,” said Bhaskar Nandy, managing director of Bhagirathi Milk Cooperative Society in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district.

Ranjit Singh, procurement manager at the Haryana Dairy Development Cooperative Federation (HDDCF), known as VITA, said, “There is no demand; we are able to sell only 5,000 litres per day against 20,000 litres before the lockdown. Even we don’t have enough containers to keep the remaining 95,000 litres of milk we procure daily as there is no demand for milk products like khoya, cheese, curd and kheer”.

In Jorabat area of Assam’s Kamrup district, dairies have piled up heavy losses in the past eight days. They are seeking the state government’s intervention to save the livelihoods of hundreds of families associated with dairy work every day.

Poultry

Sandeep Punia, a farmer in Ambala’s Nagla village, said poultry farmers were selling broiler chicken at Rs 20 per kg whereas the rearing cost is Rs 80 and were also losing money on the sale of eggs.

Atul Sonkar, president of the Chandigarh Meat Market Welfare Association, said the it was the “worst of times” for the business and if the pandemic continues to rage, the industry would be dead. In some places such as Mohali in Punjab and Panchkula in Haryana, poultry owners have started home delivery of chicken and eggs.

Balyan said the government was talking stock of the situation on a daily basis.

“We have also issued an advisory to the states to ensure that meat and poultry items are included in the list of essential commodities that should be exempt from the lockdown,” he said.

(With inputs from state bureaus)