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Farmers ditching hard-won harvest with no point of sale
Vegetable farmers loaded with produce from a bumper harvest lament that they cannot sell the food they took such trouble to grow.
As the government kept experimenting with methods of getting the vegetables from farmers to consumers, all Economic Centres – central points for farmers to sell their produce – remained shut from Tuesday for fear of coronavirus contagion.
Government officials said a system to sell vegetables had been set up and the first orders from merchants had been taken, but farmers say no-one has contacted them yet about orders.
Farmers said while the government had devised a plan to distribute vegetables through divisional secretaries, that process had not been implemented at grassroots level even by mid-week.
All-Island Farmers Federation (AIFF) Secretary T.B. Sarath claimed most farmers had been forced to throw away their freshly-harvested vegetables as the economic centres in Dambulla, Keppetipola, Nuwara Eliya, Thambuthegama and Embilipitiya remained closed.
Farmers in Jaffna, Vavuniya, Nuwara Eliya too were throwing away their harvest through inability to transport their tomatoes, onions and other produce for sale.
“The dedicated economic centres were the places where both farmers and merchants bought and sold vegetables. Now we are unable to sell our vegetables at all,” Mr. Sarath said.
“No divisional secretary or merchants have contacted us, asking us to send our crops. The days go by, we collect our harvest, but as we are unable to sell it most of it has to be thrown away,” he said.
Some farmers parked the lorries they hired to transport their harvest outside Dambulla market and tried to sell their produce.
“We are unable even to pay the hire of the lorry. We thought we can settle the payment once we sell the vegetables, but that did not work out,” a farmer said.
Some farmers were able to sell their vegetables at Rs. 20-100 a kilo, far below market levels.
With the Dambulla centre being closed, farmer W.M. Tillekeratne said, he and others were being forced to sell at low prices as they had no means of storing their fast-perishing produce.
“We understand that the government is trying its best to stop the COVID-19 virus from spreading but it should have devised a practical programme to purchase and distribute vegetables,” he said.
The government should at least purchase vegetables from farmers at a fair price and store them in cool rooms to sell them to consumers at controlled prices.
Mr. Tillekeratne pleaded for government financial aid, saying the “farmers’ sole income is their harvest”, which they could not sell.
A farmer from Kalpitiya said some middlemen who were demanding that vegetables be sold to them at Rs. 20-30 were intending to take the produce to Colombo and sell it for Rs. 200 a kilo.
The Manager of the Dambulla Economic Centre, Christy Wijeratne, claimed on Wednesday that a system to distribute vegetables throughout the country would be implemented within 12 hours.
Vegetables could be transported to any divisional secretariat office from Dambulla, he said.
Merchants only needed to state the amount of vegetables they needed and place an order at a divisional secretariat office. The order would be sent to the Dambulla market control room via email or fax and the requisite vegetables would be sent by lorry to the relevant divisional secretariat office.
He said some orders had already been placed.
Mr. Wijeratne said that the programme had been set up to stop merchants from exploiting farmers.
Dambulla Divisional Secretary Piyal Jayasooriya said he was in charge of the operation’s coordination. He said the Dambulla Economic Centre would order directly from farmers, and vegetables could be delivered within 12 hours.
The 150 members of the Dambulla Traders Association were involved in the scheme, he said.
Farmers say a major flaw in the system is that it does not prevent traders, both registered and outsiders, from buying privately from farmers at the roadsides near the Dambulla centre, when farmers faced pressure to sell for low prices.
They said the government should enforce the new system, locking out activities that made farmers tempted by quick sales vulnerable to extortion.
Additional reporting by Kanchana Kumara Ariyadasa
| Send vegetables by train, it’s cheaper | |
| Use trains to transport vegetables to central points for sale, All-Island Farmers Federation (AIFF) National Convener Namal Karunaratne urged the government.“We can send vegetables cultivated in Jaffna, Nuwara Eliya, Welimada, Batticaloa, and even transport fish and dried fish from the south to other parts of the country,” he said.Mr. Karunaratne pointed out that the amount of produce carried in 75 lorries can be sent in a single train trip, and vegetables could be delivered to every divisional secretariat from railway stations. “More vegetables can be sent on trains and the number of lorry drivers required can be reduced,” he said. |
| Fertiliser shortage ‘will hurt Yala’ | |
| Farmers say they are facing a shortage of pesticides and fertiliser due to the prolonged curfew, and this is affecting prospects for the Yala season.“I asked the distributors of pesticides whether they could provide us with what we need and they said they are collecting stocks of agro chemicals,” All-Island Farmers Federation (AIFF) secretary T.B. Sarath said. He said despite the claims, farmers had not been able to obtain stocks.Mr. Sarath also said farmers had not received free fertiliser promised by the government. A farmer in Hingurangoda, Polonnaruwa, R.M. Mahinda Bandara Ranaweera said he had not received any. A farmer in Ampara, Hemantha Kithsiri, who is also the chairman of the Namal Oya farmers’ association, said it was difficult to keep crops growing with sufficient fertiliser. Local farmers, who were focusing on growing turmeric in the 1000-acre area, were struggling. “There is no fertiliser available at stores, neither is there seedstock. Farmers would be unable to get a large harvest without fertiliser,” he said. |