Coronavirus Outbreak Forces Farmers to Work from Home

Amid the Covid-19 lockdown across the globe, ‘Work from home’ has applied to all government or private sector employee to stop the spread of the deadly virus through social contact. However, work from home is not necessarily an option for just white-collar workers, but farmers can also use this formula during this tragedy. The farmers of Gujarat has come up with the idea of ‘Sell from Farm’ and benefitted amid the lockdown mode.

Farmers, who usually sell their crops via an established supply chain through Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs), now have the means to avoid market yards and sell their produce from home.

Sell from Farm

As per reports, with almost all the states imposing a lockdown to restrict the spread of the coronavirus, most APMCs have downed the shutters, bringing commodity trading to a grinding halt. However, farmers have kept an option open for themselves — with ‘off-market’ sales or what they call ‘sell-from-farm’.

How Gujarat Farmers are doing ‘Sell from Farm”?

As per the report of ‘Business Line’, producers of oilseeds, grains and spices are increasingly turning to off-market sales in Gujarat.“This is a beneficial proposition for us on two counts,” Ramesh Patel, a farmer from Visavadar taluka in Junagadh district, told Businessline. “First, we don’t incur transportation costs. Second, we don’t need to pay commission and other labour charges that we usually do at the APMC.”