Despite lack of funds and shortage of water, farmers in East Godavari district have produced 11.85 lakh tonnes of paddy by cultivating on 1.51 lakh hectares during this rabi season.
After preserving 30 per cent of the yield for domestic consumption, they are ready to release 9.33 lakh metric tonnes into the market this week. Even as a major chunk of the produce is being procured by rice millers every season, the government, on its part, is opening paddy procurement centres all over the district to ensure that the farmers get minimum support price. The MSP is Rs. 1,450 a quintal for the Grade-A variety and Rs. 1,410 for the common variety.
“The centres are aimed at providing MSP to farmers. We are opening 279 paddy procurement centres and will provide transportation charges to farmers, besides making online payment within 48 hours of purchase,” says S. Satyanarayana, Joint Collector.
The procurement centres will function from Tuesday under the aegis of the DRDA/Velugu, Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies and the District Cooperative Marketing Society.
According to government guidelines, farmers should first bring their samples to the nearby procurement centre for formal approval, which will be given after testing the quality and moisture. Once the approval is given, the produce can be transported to the centre.
Traders still rule the roost
The ground realities, however, are quite contrary to the plans chalked out by the officials. Over 80 per cent of the cultivators are tenant farmers, for whom arranging finances is a major challenge. In the absence of tenant farmer identity cards, they are obtaining loans from paddy traders towards the input costs by mortgaging the standing crops. They are left with no option but to sell the produce to the trader at the price fixed by him. So far, the government issued identity cards to 1.25 lakh tenant farmers, of which hardly 50 per cent are able to avail themselves of farm loans from banks. “Unless we get finance from the banks to meet the input costs, we can’t sell our produce independently,” says Jalligampala Rambabu, a tenant farmer from Kapavaram, near Samalkot.
