Hyderabad: No takers for ICAR Covid-19 advisory

Hyderabad: It seems there are no takers of the advisory issued by The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to avoid field level spread of Coronavirus during agrarian activities in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Reason being, that in several parts of the two Telugu states the pre and post-harvesting operations have come to grinding halt.

It may be mentioned here that the ICAR prepared a national level agro-advisory to farmers to take up Covid-19 safety measures and cope up the lockdown period during the pre and post-harvesting, storage and marketing operations. Also, it has prescribed timely measures to save the standing horticulture crops.

It asked to maintain four to five feet distance between person to person engaged in harvesting, picking, cutting, taking of meals, transfer of produce at the collection point, loading and unloading activities etc.

Besides, it advised every person engaged in the agriculture operations to use masks and wash hands with soaps at regular intervals.

However, N Narasimhulu of Banswada, Telangana, said harvesting of paddy in his village and surrounding areas was going on at a slow pace due to shortage of farm labourers.

"Farmers are engaging less than five to six hands at a time for cutting paddy," he said. Further, farmers were finding it difficult to get the harvesting machines. The ones available for rent were very high making it cutting of paddy delayed.

These factors make that ICAR advisory finds no place for its implementation. Satyanarayana from Devarapalli, Andhra Pradesh, said that they were allowed to take up agriculture operations. But, the farm workers have to come from different villages by autos and other modes of transport.

However, the police were not allowing any kind of transportation even between the villages. "This is making farmers find it difficult to get the number of farm workers needed," he said.

Similarly, Venkatrao Chowdary of Mallavalli village of Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh and C Mallesh of Wanaparthy, claimed that they were yet to see buyers lift their mangoes.

He said he was unaware of any COVID-19 advisory issued either by the local agriculture office or Krishi Vignana Kendra.

Adding, "Hardly, seven to eight persons are engaged for collection of mangoes in mango arcade spread in one and a half acres of land. The distance from a worker to another is more than five to six feet," he clarified.

Apart from the manual activities, the ICAR has also advised taking necessary precautions like sanitising the farm machinery such as harvesters, cutters, transport vehicles, gunny bags and other packaging materials while taking to the procurement centres and market yards.