Farmers go 'desperate': Gujarat government buying up groundnut crop at snail's pace

By A Representative
Releasing a list of 10,136 Saurashtra farmers belonging to just one taluka, Kodinar, who have registered themselves for selling their groundnut crop to the Gujarat government’s offer to buy it all a remunerative support price, well-known farmers’ rights activist Sagar Rabari has revealed that, contrary to the promise by Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani that “all groundnut will be bought over”, things are moving at a “snail’s pace.”
Claiming that just about 50 farmers’ groundnut production is being bought every day in Kodinar, Rabari, who heads Khedut Ekta Manch, a non-political farmers’ organization, said, “Does the government know how many centres it has opened to buy up the crop at the support price from the farmers who are reeling heavily under the aftermath of floods?”
According to Rabari, “The way things are moving, it seems, an entire season wouldn’t be sufficient to buy up the crop. The farmers would be left with no other option but to desperately sell their product in the open market at a price whichFis far away from the remunerative price announced by the government to buy up the product.”
Demanding the government to act immediately and open more support price centres, Rabari added, “Only if the system is able to gear itself for providing the remunerative price to all the farmers within 10 days would they be able to usefully utilize their money.”