Bhubaneswar/Rourkela: If COVID-19 lockdowns and shutdowns hit them hard a few months ago, lack of cold storage is now adding salt to their injuries. A case in point is the distress sale of vegetables, especially tomatoes, in Rourkela where farmers were seen distributing their produce at free of cost to people while being in tears.
Such heart-wrenching scenes were reported from the streets of Rourkela in Sundergarh district. Once sold at Rs 40-50 per kg, now there is no taker for tomatoes at even Rs 2 a kg.
Farmers in Nuagaon of Sundergarh, which is famous for vegetable farming, had grown tomatoes on several acres of land after losing works due to Covid-19 pandemic. Now, a tray containing 30 kgs of tomatoes is being sold at Rs 30 that means per kg at Rs 1.
As there is no cold storage to store the produce, the distressed farmers prefer to distribute them to the local residents free of cost before the produce get rot.
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“Nobody is even willing to buy 5 kg of tomatoes at Rs 10. So, we are calling people and distributing tomatoes to them at free of cost,” a farmer lamented.
“As tomatoes are going unsold, we are giving it to people free of cost. We cannot store the product for a long time. Therefore, we are forced to give it for free,” said another farmer while distributing tomatoes.
Similar situation prevailed in Athagarh and Banki of Cuttack. Not only tomatoes, vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, brinjal and pumpkin which are produced in large scale here are not getting legitimate price.
While tomatoes are sold at Rs 2 per kg, the farmers said they cannot even meet the production and labour cost with the current price of cabbage. They attributed the sharp fall in the price of vegetable to defunct cold storage at Athagarh. Once able to store thousands of quintals of vegetable, the cold storage has now turned into a ghost house.
“Our produces are being sold at Rs 2 to 3 in the market. We even cannot pay the labour cost by selling the products,” said a farmer of Banki.
“Middlemen are purchasing vegetables from us at Rs 10 per kg and sell them at Rs 50 in the market. Had there been cold storage facilities, we could have stored the product and sell them at proper price,” said another farmer.
Speaking on the issue, Cuttack MP Bhartuhari Mahtab said, “Efforts are on by the State government in this direction. I am hopeful that measures will be taken across the State in this regard at the earliest.”
(Edited By Pradeep Singh)