Small farmers in the state of Maharashtra have joined hands to take fruits and vegetables to the doorsteps of housing societies since big markets as well as Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) are not completely working because of lockdown.
At several places, the district administration is connecting farmers’ groups to the housing complexes. Due to this, profit earned is directly coming to growers instead of getting divided among middlemen & wholesale dealers and at the same time customers are also getting a better deal.
In Parbhani district, there is a group of vegetable farmers, who have formed a chain to collect vegetables from the fields & take the produce in a small van to consumers. In Aurangabad, the district administration is facilitating cultivators to connect with customers.
Farmers in many villages are creating a new network of growers and consumers as the weekly markets are closed and the traders or middlemen chain have got broken due to lockdown.
In addition, farmers’ producer companies or FPCs have also jumped into action. Sahyadri Farms, the Nashik-based FPC, has begun selling vegetable and fruit baskets in Pune, Nashik and Mumbai, depending upon the demand made by individual consumers / housing societies.
It must be noted that Maharashtra has delisted vegetables and fruits from the APMC Act in 2016, allowing growers to sell their produce directly to the consumers. But, small farmers still depend on traders as well as intermediaries to reach the market.
In the meantime, many farmers across Maharashtra have started distributing free vegetables and food grain to daily labourers. In Majalgaon, a grower distributed vegetables and in Nashik Pravin Patil, another farmer, distributed around 20 quintals of wheat to the poor. Also farmers under the banner of Bhartiya Kisan Sangh in Jalna distributed food grains in slum areas.
