Farmers’ COVID-19 woes: Haryana Govt fails to muster courage to procure mustard oilseed

Farmers in Haryana are finding the current Corona lockdown too punishing to have any hope with the slow and inadequate procurement process that the state government is going to initiate in a few days time from now for mustard oilseed. The quantum of intake through state procurement in its case has been cut to one-fourth, or 25 percent, of the yield, leading to distress sale of the oilseed.

Stating this, a retired Indian Army officer and Rohtak-based farmer, Captain Shamsher Singh Malik (Rtd), said that the procurement has got delayed, number of procurement centres reduced and its quantum in case of mustard seed has been drastically cut despite farmers meeting the government demand to complete an intricate online crop registration process amid the lockdown.

The procurement of Rabi crop was to begin on April 1 but in view of the lockdown, it was deferred to April 15 in case of mustard and April 20 for wheat. In the meantime, the cut in case of state procurement of mustard was enforced by the government. The government is also expecting farmers to voluntarily contribute one to five percent of the proceeds from the sale of their crop to contribute to its fund to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, said Malik.

He added that because of the lockdown,farmers affected by the government decision with regard to mustard could not take up the issue with the authorities.

“Thus, I along with my wife Veena Malik, who is a women’s rights activist, silently stood facing the gate of our house in protest. We covered our faces with a black mask in view of the lockdown and held a placard to highlight the issue,” he said.

The government’s decision about reduced intake of mustard has evoked deep consternation among farmers because procurement price set by the government for the oilseed is about Rs 4,425 a quintal while in the open market it may vary between Rs 3,500 and Rs 3,800 a quintal. Besides, the Rabi crop this year was badly damaged due to unseasonal rain and hailstorm at a time when it was about to ripe. This affected the yield and quality of the crop.

The lockdown came into effect amid harvesting. It created shortage of manpower and harvesting machines had to be requisitioned by most farmers. This escalated the cost on the one hand and the farmers had to wait as the government rescheduled the date for procurement.

Earlier, the government had assured farmers it would implement MS Swaminathan Committee report on farm sector. The committee had recommended that the minimum support price for farm produce should be one-and-half times of the cost incurred by the cultivators on a crop. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised in his 2014 election campaign to implement this soon after winning the polls.

“The Prime Minister’s assurances to farmers are yet to be met by both Centre and States,” remarked Captain Malik wryly.