Farmers in Talavadi expressed concern over vegetables procured from them at a meagre price being sold at exorbitant price to people during the total lockdown here.
Tomato, cabbage, chilly, beans, beetroot, cauliflower, chowchow, brinjal, Ivy gourd and other gourd varieties are cultivated widely by farmers in the hill. Every day, farmers take their produce to the mandis where vegetables in large quantities also arrive from Chamarajanagar in Karnataka.
The vegetables are auctioned in the evening and the successful bidder transports the produce to the wholesale markets in Erode, Coimbatore and Kerala.
Auctioned price of various vegetables a kg at the Talavadi Vegetable Commission Mandi and Traders Welfare Association on Friday evening were tomato ₹ 2.50, cabbage ₹ 3, chilly ₹ 10, beans ₹ 40 to ₹ 60, beetroot ₹ 14, chow chow ₹ 10, brinjal ₹ 10 and Ivy gourd ₹ 13. On Saturday, the price fixed for retail sales by the Department of Agricultural Marketing and Agri Business were tomato ₹ 34, brinjal ₹ 34, beans ₹ 26 to ₹ 78, chilly ₹ 25 and cabbage ₹ 15.
S. Manickam, a farmer, said the price of vegetables when reaching the end users doubled whereas the producer got a meagre price. “We sell tomatoes for less than ₹ 3 a kg whereas it is sold for ₹ 20 a kg to the consumers. The difference of ₹ 17 a kg goes to commission agents, wholesalers and retailers while the farmers suffer,” he added.
Kannaiyan Subramaniam of Talavadi Farmers Association in his social media post expressed serious concern over the crashing price of vegetables to the farmers and skyrocketing prices to the consumers.
The farmers said the issue of poor pricing was a perennial problem to them in the hills as they faced difficulty in transporting the produce to the plains and marketing it.
“The State government should purchase vegetables from us directly and sell them,” said Mr. Manickam.
