Rajasthan : Maize farmers in Bhilwara seek MSP after having to sell at a loss
Farmers in Bhilwara, who grew maize on 1.7 lakh hectares, are forced to sell at low market rates and demand MSP procurement. Daily arrivals are high, but prices are below costs. Officials say maize inclusion under MSP requires land assessment before sending a proposal to the state government.
Bhilwara: Farmers in Bhilwara district who sowed maize on 1.7 lakh hectares this monsoon are demanding that the govt include their crop in minimum support price (MSP) procurement. With 5,000 to 7,000 quintals of maize arriving daily in Bhilwara, farmers are currently having to sell the produce at much lower-than-expected rates.Even though the monsoon season across Bhilwara and Chittorgarh was particularly active this year, farmers flocking to the A-grade agricultural market here to sell their maize are leaving disappointed.”I had sown hybrid seeds at an expense of Rs 1,700 per bigha,” said Shankar Lal, a farmer from Lakhola village of Bhilwara.
“The price per quintal of maize in the market today is Rs 1,700 per quintal; that means I’ll be selling at a loss,” he lamented.”Farmers are distressed,” said Gopal, another farmer at the market. “We spend a lot of money on cultivation, but after all that investment and hard work, we can’t sell our crops at a profit. The only way out of this situation is for the govt to start procuring maize at MSP. Bhilwara district collector Jasmeet Singh Sandhu said procurement at MSP is administered by the Union govt through FCI in the case of wheat, and by Rajfed through cooperative societies in the case of mustard, gram and urad.
“For maize to be procured at MSP, we must first determine how much land is under maize cultivation by assessing govt records on farmland usage and crops sown,” he said.”Based on that, our effort will be to send a proposal to the state govt to include maize under MSP and provide financial aid to farmers,” he added.Vinod Kumar Jain, joint director (Agriculture), said maize was sown on 1.7 lakh hectares as a kharif crop this season and yielded a bountiful harvest.
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Source : The Times Of India
