The Hindu : Kerala News : Farmers sore over cut in paddy price

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Friday, Jan 28, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Farmers sore over cut in paddy price

By Our Staff Reporter

THRISSUR JAN. 27. Farmers in the district are severely critical of the reduction of procurement price of paddy and allege that there appeared to be a deliberate strategy on the part of some power centres to cripple the paddy farm sector to make it easily accessible to large-scale lease farm firms. The district paddy price fixation committee had fixed the procurement price as Rs. 770 per quintal in the beginning of the harvest season. But, later, it was reduced to Rs. 740 per quintal and subsequently to Rs. 700. The farmers argue that there is no ground for such reduction of the procurement price that was around Rs. 770 last year.

``There was no such situation where huge quantity of paddy was stocked and it was difficult to sell it off. Had it been the case, there could have been some justification for the reduction of procurement price. This time there was no procurement at all,'' said the Karshaka Sanghom leader, A.S. Kutty.

Coming down heavily on the decision to reduce the procurement price, the CPI Legislature party leader, K.P. Rajendran, said the paddy farmers should have got a higher price this time because apart from the increased input costs, the farmers had to bear severe losses because of the flash floods and other climatic problems.

Rs.5-crore loss

According to estimates, the paddy farmers in the district had to bear a loss of Rs. 5 crores. They had completed all the primary works of paddy farming like sowing the seeds as well as preparing the nursery and field for planting the seedling. But all these works went waste as they were washed away in the flash floods. The studies indicate that the farmers had to invest about Rs. 3,000 per acre as additional expenditure, Mr. Rajendran said.

All that the farmers had got was some quantity of seeds. No other compensation was given to them, though the Revenue Minister had announced a relief of Rs. 1 crore. The Chief Minister, Oommen Chandy, had also announced in his mass contact programme that development of kole land paddy farms would be the top priority of the Government in the district. But nothing significant has happened so far, Mr. Rajendran alleged.

He said the paddy farmers should get Rs. 100 more per qunital and the procurement price should have been fixed at Rs. 840 to Rs. 900 . But it has now been reduced to Rs. 700 and this has created a panic among the paddy farmers.

Mr. Kutty said that during the LDF rule the price fixation committee had representatives of the farm organisations. Now it is only a official-level committee and the interest of the farmers are given scant respect.

Mr. Rajendran said that some officials in the committee had conceded to him that they had not taken into account the losses that the farmers had to incurred due to the natural calamities, when they were lowering the paddy price.

Plight of societies

The agony of the paddy farmers had been aggravated further by the refusal of the Padasekhara Samithies as well as the cooperative societies and mills to procure paddy even at the reduced rates. They complain that they are yet to receive huge amounts from the Government as subsidy and handling charges for the paddy they had procured last year, Mr. Kutty said.

Mr. Rajendran said that the procurement agencies in the district were to get Rs. 4.5 crores from the Government towards subsidy, incentive and handling charges. There were reports that they were sanctioned Rs. 1.25 crores this year out of that amount. But the officials conceded that they could not avail themselves of that amount because of treasury ban, he said.

All these have put the farmers at the mercy of the mill owners. The situation will go totally out of control when harvesting begins in the 30,000-odd acres of kole land by next month. ``The attention of the Government had been drawn to these issues not only by us but also by the Congress leaders. But some vested interests are trying to help the mill owners and to crush the farmers so that the land can be cornered by multi-national land lease companies,'' Mr. Rajendran alleged.

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