Jaleswar: Despite adverse climatic condition, this agricultural district of Balasore has recorded bumper harvest of paddy this season. But farmers still resort to distress sale as the procurement process is yet to commence in this region, a report said.
On the other hand, traders from West Bengal are set to make huge profit cashing in on the helplessness of the poor farmers, it was learnt.
According to information available with district agricultural assessment committee, high-yielding paddy crops were raised on nearly 20,000 acres of land in Bhograi, Jaleswar and Baliapal blocks of Jaleswar agricultural district this season.
More than 50 quintals of paddy have been harvested from each hectare, said a joint crop-cutting report prepared by the agriculture, revenue and statistics departments.
Though the government assessment has put the production at 50 quintals, some farmers have harvested more than 80 quintals per hectare since they had procured high-yield seeds from the market instead of using the general seeds supplied by the agriculture department, admitted some farm experts.
However, despite such bumper production, farmers are selling their produce at something around Rs 1,100 per quintal to traders of West Bengal against the government-fixed minimum support price of Rs 1,470 for fair average quality (FAQ) standard of paddy.
The farmers are left with little choice as the Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) – 19 in Jaleswar, 19 in Bhograi and 15 in Baliapal- in northern region of the district are yet to open their procurement centres.
“We have no option but to depend on Bengal traders, even as they don’t pay us at a time, to clear our debts and meet our daily expenses,” said farmers Nimain Das, Ashok Patra and Harishankar Raj.
The government should start paddy procurement as soon as possible, said agriculture officer Kiran Kumar Parida and assistant agriculture officer Sarat Kumar Sethi of Jaleswar agriculture district.
It is not only paddy, farmers who have raised groundnuts, green gram and black gram, also suffer from distress sale, a report said. PNN