Narla: Maize farmers of Jamapadar in Narla block of Kalahandi district are distressed as there are no marketing facilities and help from the administration, a report said.
Around 50 per cent of the farmers in the village are growing maize, but the lack of marketing facilities results in their produce going waste, or they being forced to sell the crop to middlemen at throwaway prices.
As per reports, farmers here first started raising maize on a few acres on an experimental basis five years back. Slowly more farmers adopted maize cultivation. Now maize is cultivated on 50 acres here. Farmers spend Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 per acre for seed, manure and labour.
The government’s tall claims of making available all possible facilities to farmers have fallen flat here.
There is a provision to provide maize seeds to farmers free of cost. But the farmers alleged that they were not getting their quota.
“Agriculture department employees are helping themselves to the seeds instead of giving them to us,” they said.
The farmers are forced to buy hybrid seeds of various companies from the open market at high prices.
Moreover, with no government facilities for selling maize or its procurement, the farmers are forced to go for distress sales. These days the affected farmers can be seen selling maize on both sides of M. Rampur-Bhawanipatna Road. Farmers Maheswar Rana, Krushnachandra Rana, Arun Rana, Shankar Rana, Hamir Rana, Sudan Rana, Baishnab Rana, Narendra Rana and Dingar Rana urged the administration to help maize farmers.
Tulapada village agriculture worker Sabita Senapati said the government had stopped field demonstrations this year and maize seeds had been distributed at Rupra and Sarian villages.
PNN