Kathmandu: Stakeholders have said that the farmers are forced to sell paddy at cheaper prices even though the government has fixed the minimum support price for paddy.
Stakeholders have complained that farmers have been forced to sell paddy at cheaper prices due to delay in issuing the directive even after the government fixed the minimum support price for paddy.
The government has made arrangements to purchase paddy through cooperatives at minimum support price. In an interaction program organized at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development on Thursday, the stakeholders said that the farmers have always been affected due to the weakness of the government.
Panchakaji Shrestha, vice-president of the Federation of National Farmers’ Group, said that the government has fixed the minimum support price of paddy in July but the trend of farmers being deceived by traders has not stopped this year either. He said that the traders have got an opportunity to take advantage of the failure to procure paddy on time as the government bodies at all three levels are not responsible.
Khem Pathak, president of the Central Federation of Nepal Agricultural Cooperatives, said that the traders had already purchased paddy from the farmers at a much lower price than the minimum support price fixed by the government. So far, the cooperative has been able to procure only 20 metric tonnes of paddy, he said. He said that paddy could not be procured from farmers as the directive was not issued in time.
Spokesperson of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Hari Bahadur KC, on the other hand, said that arrangements have been made to purchase paddy through cooperatives to increase the access of farmers to food and trade companies. He mentioned that a directive has been issued to purchase paddy at minimum support price through cooperatives listed in the zone superzone under the Prime Minister’s Agriculture Modernization Project.
He also said that the cooperatives have made arrangements to send the price of paddy to the farmers’ account within 15 days after purchasing the paddy from the farmers. The government has already decided to provide a subsidy of Rs. 112 per quintal to the cooperatives for purchasing paddy from farmers and storing it in the market.
The government had fixed the price of coarse paddy at Rs 2,735 per quintal and medium paddy at Rs 2,885 per quintal for the current fiscal year. The ministry has also made arrangements to purchase paddy through cooperatives. However, the Council of Ministers has approved the ‘Directive on Procurement and Management of Paddy at Minimum Support Price, 2020’ only on October 19. Due to which the cooperatives could not procure paddy on time.
Farmers have been forced to sell paddy to traders at cheaper prices due to the fact that the paddy planted in Asar is ripe in November and has to be sold at maturity. The ministry has estimated that about 1.5 million hectares of paddy is cultivated in the country this year and around 5.6 million metric tonnes of paddy will be produced.
Farmers do not get support price of paddy
