Kakinada: Support price fails to benefit pulses farmers

Kakinada: Despite the Union government announcing minimum support prices (MSP) for pulses, they are not benefiting farmers as they are selling away their produce to traders or middlemen soon after harvest at lesser prices to avoid hassle of taking crop to Markfed procurement centres, which are anyway few and far between.

Currently, green gram and black gram crops are coming to the market as the farmers have been harvesting them for the last 20 days in the district. According to sources, traders and middlemen are buying black gram at Rs 5,000 to Rs.5,200 a quintal from farmers as against the MSP announced by the Union government of Rs 5,700, green gram at Rs 5,900 per quintal as against the MSP of Rs 7,050 and red gram is purchased at Rs 5,000 per quintal as against Rs 5,800 of MSP. However, red gram crop is not coming to the market as the harvesting has not yet been completed. On the other hand, the prices of black gram is Rs 110 to Rs 120 a kg, green gram is Rs 95 to Rs 105 and red gram Rs 100 to Rs 125 a kg in open market and in malls.

"Traders are exploiting us by denying proper price on the pretext of discolouring and other factors. Unless we dispose our produce, its quality may deteriorate further due to the climatic conditions. We don't know where the Markfed opened the Pulse Purchase Centres," said Vanam Nageswara Rao, a farmer who cultivated green gram and black gram in three acre. He said that the yield also was not good and he could not get even his investment back.

He lamented that officials frequently advise them to go for alternative crops instead of paddy, but when they do by cultivating pulses, they do not get even remunerative price.

Black gram is being cultivated in 3,000 hectare, green gram in 200 hectare and red gram 1,200 to 1,500 hectare in Jaggampet, Gandepalli, Rangampet, Gollaprolu and some agency mandals in East Godavari district.

Markfed district manager Isukupatla Manju said that two Pulse Purchase Centres have been opened at Z Ragampet and Rangampet. "But the farmers are not coming to the centres to sell their produce at MSP, instead selling at to traders and wholesale merchants at prices higher than MSP. We will do justice to farmers in case they do not get price on par with MSP from traders," she said.

On the other hand, wholesale traders of pulses said that they were not buying local crop much due to its low quality. A wholesale dealer T Venkannababu said that most of the pulses were being bought from Maharashtra which is found to be of high quality and favoured by local consumers. "Wholesale dealers are buying A grade variety pulses at more than Rs 11,000 a quintal in Maharashtra as consumers too prefer them in view of their good quality. Much of the crop cultivating in East Godavari is being consumed in hotels and by the catering agencies," he said. However, he said that stocks of pulses were very low now in the market since the new crop comes to market in the middle of January.