Why is Agriculture department playing a passive role?

Middlemen make a profit at the cost of farmers & consumers

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: With the State Agriculture Department and the district authorities having no control over the market, it is the writ of the middlemen that runs in the unorganized vegetable markets in the State. In such a situation, only the middlemen go with high-profit margins, making consumers pay through their noses and depriving farmers of their due profit.

Everything has gone seriously awry in the vegetable markets in the State. An example would suffice. Middlemen procure cucumber from the source – Kalgasia and Jania in Barpeta district – at Rs 1-1.50 per kg and in Guwahati consumers buy the commodity at Rs 30-40 per kg. The middlemen procure cabbage from the same source at Rs 2-3 per kg and in Guwahati consumers pay Rs 30-40 a kg for it. In this unscrupulous practice, the middle neither pay remunerative prices to the farmers, nor do they give any relief to the consumers in the price line.

According to a farmer from Jania, growing a bigha of cucumber costs him around Rs 40,000-50,000, but since the selling price at the source is just Rs 1-1.50 per kg, the total returns from a bigha of cucumber is just Rs 5,000-10,000 this year. “I cultivated cucumber with loans from the market. Is there any way out for us to survive without any regulation from the government to protect farmers’ interest?” the farmer questioned.

In Assam, vegetables are grown in around 17 per cent of its total cultivable land, producing around 40 MT vegetables yearly. However, in the absence of any group or chain or regulated marketing system as is the case elsewhere in the country, the existing haphazard marketing system is highly collusive, exploitative and inefficiently operating one with high-profit margins, benefiting only the middlemen. Had the Department of Agriculture and district authorities put in place regulated or group marketing in the State, both the farmers and the consumers would have got a succour.

All is not well with the cold storage facilities made available in the State by the Agriculture department. Cold storage facilities should have been vegetable-specific since tomato and potato cannot be stored at the same temperature. However, the cold storage facilities of the department aren’t vegetable-specific and such lapses lead the farmers to sell their produces, mainly the perishable ones, at throwaway prices.

Admitting lapses on the part of the department, an official of the Agriculture department said, “From our end we haven’t been able to provide sufficient facilities like vehicles to the vegetable growers. Some farmers from Kharupetia and Barpeta do bring vegetables to the weekly market at Beltola in Guwahati and get a profit. Providing facilities to the farmers could have made the situation better for them.”

The official, however, added, “The use of chemical fertilizer is very high. This practice increases the production, but repels prospective buyers. Vegetable traders from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal etc did come for bulk buying from the State. However, such traders seldom come to the State now because of the use of chemical. People are health conscious now.”

If the government is really serious for the wellbeing of the farmers, it should take this issue with all seriousness. Even though fixing vegetable prices is not the responsibility of the Agriculture department, yet the department cannot shrug off its responsibility of ensuring remunerative prices for vegetable growers.

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