Watermelon Farmer Who Couldn't Sell His Crop Due To Lockdown Gets Help, Army Buys The Harvest

The Indian Army has come to the aid of Ranjan Kumar Mahto, a farmer from Ramgarh in Jharkhand, who was unable to sell the watermelons he had grown, due to the lockdown.

The 25-year-old who had been farming in a leased 25-acre land had cultivated watermelon, capsicum, brinjal and other vegetables.

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Invested Rs 15 lakh

He had invested Rs 15 lakh for the cultivation of watermelons in 6 acres, but when it was time for harvest Mahto could not find any buyers, due to the ongoing lockdowns.

Not wanting to see his hard work go to waste, Mahto then offered five tonnes of his produce to soldiers of the Sikh Regimental Centre (SRC) at Ramgarh.

"There were no buyers during the lockdown. The crop started to rot. Nobody in the village was ready to buy it even for Rs 2 per kg. We sought help from various circles but to no avail.

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"Finally, I decided to offer the produce to our brave soldiers for free and approached the cantonment," he told PTI.

Indian Army came forward to help

But to his pleasant surprise, SRC officers including commandant Brigadier M Sri Kumar visited his farm in adjoining Bokaro district and bought the produce.

The soldiers and their family members visited the 25- acre farm at Kander with gifts, groceries and food packets for farm labourers and took the 5-tonne produce in their own vehicles to SRC, located 15 km away.

"It was heartening to see drip irrigation on 25 acres of land but unfortunately, the poor farmer could not sell the produce. We saw women workers too.

"We came to know that he had launched the venture two years ago but suffered losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic and cyclone Yaas," Brigadier Kumar, also the president of the Ramgarh Cantonment Board, told PTI.

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While Mahto is lucky to have sold at least a portion of his crop, many others like him are not.

Due to the lockdowns, that have affected vehicular movements and the limited functioning of markets many farmers, especially those producing vegetables and fruits have been struggling.

Recently many tomato growers in Karnataka had dumped their crop on the road as the demand fell, due to lockdown.

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Earlier this week, flower growers of Karnataka's Shivamogga urged the state government to provide financial support for unregistered farmers as their businesses have been impacted due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"After the first lockdown, we incurred losses, the government extended support by announcing subsidized fertilizers but they were always running out of stocks which forced us to buy them at private outlets," Srinivas, a farmer said.