Anticipating a shortage of vegetables in the next couple of months as a fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, the State Agriculture Department is adopting a two-pronged strategy to tackle any such eventuality.
The department, through its main arm – the Horticulture wing – is motivating farmers to produce more vegetables in the State. The fact that the current period happens to coincide with the season for the cultivation of vegetables in the State has come in handy for the authorities.
Simultaneously, the Agricultural Marketing and Agri Business Directorate — another arm of the Agriculture Department — is in touch with officials of supplier States such as Maharashtra and Karnataka to ensure the steady supply of vegetables.
As Tamil Nadu receives an average of 250 truck loads of big-sized onion (around 6,250 tonnes) every day from Nashik, Maharashtra, the officials of the western State had, at an inter-State conference coordinated by the Centre on Tuesday, assured their counterparts in T.N. that there would be no shortage of onions, a senior official of the Agriculture Department said. Karnataka is another supplier State, which provides tomato, potato and carrot. Agra in Uttar Pradesh has been a consistent provider of potato to Tamil Nadu’s markets.
As for the domestic production of vegetables, Tamil Nadu, on an average, produces 50 lakh tonnes of vegetables annually, of which tapioca accounts for about 27 lakh tonnes; tomato 3.2 lakh tonnes; onion 2.2 lakh tonnes; and brinjal 1.2 lakh tonnes. Seventy Uzhavar Sandhais (farmers’ markets) in different districts have been relocated to bigger sites outside the limits of cities and towns so that the norms of social distancing could be followed.
In the meantime, the Agriculture Department is overseeing the distribution of urea to the Cauvery delta, where there are plans to raise paddy over 50,000 hectares. Called ‘summer paddy’, this crop will cover 30,000 hectares initially. On Wednesday morning, a consignment of 1,200 tonnes of urea reached the Thanjavur railway junction. The State will get nearly 14,000 tonnes more shortly. Ordinarily, the summer paddy is not encouraged. But given the present circumstances, the authorities are willing to give latitude to the farmers, who have been advised to adhere to social distancing norms.
