While thousands of agitating farmers are committed to demand repeal of three farm laws enacted by the Central government to allegedly bring in corporate and big business houses in the farm produce trade by giving an option to farmers to sell their produce in open market, many apple growers are not happy with this experience in Himachal Pradesh .
The ongoing agitation of farmers for nearly two months has also generated a debate at the national level with experts debating pros and cons of involvement of big players in the farm produce business.
In Himachal Pradesh corporate groups like Adani, Dev Bhoomi traders etc are already in the apple marketing business for nearly 15 years. The Adani’s, the largest buyer of apple crop in major apple producing areas of Shimla, Kullu and Kinnaur districts have established three large C- stores at Sainj (Theog), Mehdali ( Rohru) ) and Bithal (Rampur) to store and market apples.
Sharing experiences of apple growers selling their produce to these stores former Vice Chancellor of Horticulture University Nauni, a horticulture expert and an apple grower Dr Vijay Singh Thakur tells, “I have been associated with them since 2008 when they entered apple trading in the state; in initial years they gave good price for apples purchased from orchardists including me but now they are minting huge money while majority growers are getting low price.”
“ They have devised several methods to buy apples like announcing rates as late as September 1st reducing bargaining power when 80 percent crop is already marketed , give prices based on colour of the fruit , introduced 12 grades for the size which are against international standard and scientific approval,” he adds.
He says, “The rate for apples is fixed between Rs 12 to Rs 80 kg and fifty percent purchase is made at Rs 40 to 50 per kg and I have recently been informed from Kolkata they are selling the apples at Rs 250 or above per kg there; making it clear what a grower is getting and how much they are making.”
However, a representative of a private company said, “There is no question of making huge profits in this trade and we are giving good prices to apple growers for their produce.”
Sanjay Chuahan state secretary of Kissan Sangharsh Samiti says , “ Though they have taken land on lease from the state government at Rs one and given huge subsidy by the Central government to establish the C -stores but growers cannot store their apples in these stores and are used for running private business only.”
“They have invented their own grading and colour norms to buy the apples at their will and growers are not allowed to enter the stores to know the grade for which rates are determined and if the APMC mandis fail to function the private players would invent many ways to lower the price of apples”, he adds.
To allure the growers the private players offer good prices in initial years but as they start getting apples they resort to manipulate the rates, feeling many apple growers.
Many apple growers were also cheated by unscrupulous private companies who fled away by not paying the growers after buying apples. FIRs to recover several crores have been lodged by the growers against such private players.
8 thoughts on “Experience of selling apples in open market not good for many in Himachal”
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Cash payments should be made compulsory.
System must be made to sell at market for example Calcutta @ 250.00 per kg.
Govt. must prepare terms and conditions before hands for grading and assessments of quality.
In case of dispute compitent authority must be given powers to settle the matter, whose decision shall be final before Court of Law.
Quite right Thakur Sahib . Thanks
The best ways for the safety of apple farmers :
1 . To fight for the existence of the APMC system
2. If the government is adamant to protect the interests of the the private market players , the growers need to avoid selling to private players ,despite being allured with higher rates, for the survival of the APMC system.
3. Last choice and the best one is to strengthen the co-operative societies for the storage as well as the marketing.
If the farmers get allured for the temporary high rates offered by the private market players or none of the above methods are followed, the farmers should be ready to be exploited at will by these Adani,Ambani and the likes.
Quite right Sir
The growers would have to protect the APMCs and come forward in protecting their interests otherwise they would get exploited at the hands of likes of Adani and Ambani.
Thanks a lot for your comment .
Your article brings forth the fact that corporate farming is not welcome. Huge profit making by the corporates is obvious otherwise why they are in this business. But, what is more painful is the fact that to build infrastructure they have got subsidies from the government. That evidently manifest whether the government stands with the farmers or the corporates?
Exactly Doctor Sahib ! And this is the model which this government is trying to sell to farmers through the three farm laws.
Thank you Doctor Sahib we must make farmers and other people aware by sharing experiences of selling farm produce in the open market in Himachal .
Doctor saheb, government provides not only the subsidy but the corporates are being provided with huge , almost free bank loans ( as per Dr Subramanyam Swami, Adani alone has 4.5 lakh crore bank NPAs at present) . All this seems unavoidable unless it is fought by the farmers successfully as they are doing now ,if not then growers will have to find out ways like building strong co-operative system to manage all this on their own.
Absolutely, the corporate houses are drawing every facility from the government and the growers are suffering losses.