Promising to play an effective role as a catalyst, officials from the Department of Agricultural Marketing and Agri Business assured to provide a right environment for farmers and merchants to buy and sell their produce.
Listing out a number of features of the department at a meeting here on Thursday, its Director C. Manoharan said that the government’s objective was to ensure fair price to farmers and eliminate middlemen.
Apart from this, the farmers could stock their produce at facilities provided by the Agricultural Marketing Committee in different locations in each district and sell when the prices were good.
Usually, there would be a tendency among traders to bargain hard with farmers during harvest time so as to make big profit. To prevent distress sale by farmers, the government had introduced many user-friendly measures.
Collector L. Subramanian said that the district administration was keen to see a sea change in the lives of farmers and appealed to them to make use of facilities made available by the Agricultural Marketing Committee.
Like how Tiruchengode was famous for cotton market and Erode for turmeric, Madurai should become famous for ‘Malli’ and paddy so as to attract merchants from many places.
The farmers, who spoke on the occasion, offered many suggestions. The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) should allow farmers to transport their produce in its buses as it was not allowed by the crew on the pretext that they occupied precious passenger space. The Collector assured to examine the modalities with the officials and the TNSTC.
A progressive farmer Arulprakasam said that a core committee should be formed to work out the nitty-gritty in the functioning of the Agricultural Marketing Committee by involving various stakeholders.
He suggested creating awareness among farmers of the existence of Agricultural Marketing Committee facilities in Madurai, Tirumangalam, Usilampatti and Vadipatti.
Jaggery merchants suggested that if they were given space on the Agricultural Marketing Committee premises, they would vacate their shops functioning in Madurai city.
This would also pave way for eliminating traffic snarls.
Earlier, J. Thavasamuthu, secretary, Madurai Agricultural Marketing Committee, welcomed the gathering.
