A farmer in Amritsar, Punjab, was forced to plough his entire produce of cauliflower which was selling for only 0.75 paisa per kilogram at mandi or wholesale market.
According to a report by The Times of India, owing to blockade of roads to Delhi, prices of vegetables have nosedived in Amritsar and adjoining districts forcing many farmers to plough their standing crops and "demand minimum support price (MSP) for the vegetables on the lines of wheat of paddy.
Ajit Singh, a farmer from the border village of Sarai, ploughed one acre of his standing cauliflower crop.
Ajit told TOI that he had spent around Rs 30,000-40,000 on the purchase of seedlings, fertilizers and pesticides for cultivating one acre land and was hopeful of making a profit of more than Rs 1 lakh.
“Last year cauliflower fetched Rs 11-14, but today I am getting less than Rs 1 per kg in the wholesale market, harvesting the crop and taking it to the wholesale vegetable market is a losing proposition so I decided to plough it," he said.
He added that vegetable trucks were not able to reach Delhi and other markets resulting in a fall in price of vegetables.
Omprakash Yadav of Muktapur village in Bihar’s Samastipur district ploughed his field of cauliflower with a tractor to destroy the ready-to-harvest crop.
“I have ploughed around 3.5 acres so far over the past two days. Around 1.5 acres still remain. I will plough it tomorrow (Wednesday). I had never expected to see such a day, but I now know the place of farmers in our country,” Omprakash told The Telegraph on Tuesday.
He added that the usual price? for cauliflower ranges between Rs 700 and Rs 1,500 per quintal, but the prices have nosedived this season.
The COVID-19 lockdown has further dampened the spirit of the farmers since they are unable to get the right price for their produce.
In April, a farmer in Bangalore who grew muskmelon, said that due to lack of labour and no transportation facilities to take it to the market, he left the produce to rot in fields.
Another farner from Karnataka who grew tomatoes had dumped 15 tonnes of his produce on a dry tank bed as he could not transport it to the market.
In Belgavi, another farmer let cattle graze on his one-acre cabbage crop that was ready for harvest.