News
Paddy farmers battered ‘black and blue’
View(s):The Sinhala and Tamil New Year is around the corner. However paddy farmers claim they will face a bleak ‘blue’ New Year, unless the state steps in to ensure the guaranteed price scheme for the purchase of paddy is implemented throughout the country.
Story and pix by Kanchana Kumara Ariyadasa.
Farmers in the Matale DS Division of Laggala and Wilgamuwa complain that despite the floor-price for the purchase of paddy being Rs 38/- per kg, they are forced to sell their produce to traders at prices ranging from between Rs. 27/- to Rs. 28/- per kg.
The bountiful harvest, together with mechanised harvesting methods has resulted in threshing floors proving inadequate to dry stocks of paddy. Resultantly farmers face much difficulty and have resorted to drying their produce along roadsides and other available spaces.
They (farmers) lament poverty forces them to take loans to cultivate their lands. In addition they have to pay for agro-inputs, protect the crop from herds of wild animals and are finally forced to sell the crop for a pittance to unscrupulous traders who claim stocks are not sufficiently dry… leaving them in near destitution.
They are calling on the authorities to ensure they are not exploited by traders and call on government to ensure paddy is purchased at the guaranteed price.
A worker gazes at the ripening paddy fields
Mechanisation of agriculture has made it possible for the crop to be harvested quickly
Farmers are forced to dry their harvest on roadsides as the present threshing floors have proved inadequate to dry the harvest