ITARSI: Every morning trucks and trolleys roll past on the Itarsi-Hoshangabad highway making their way to the Itarsi mandi – one of the two largest wholesale grain markets in Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh. The large market turns into a hub of activity with farmers from five districts of the state – Betul, Hoshangabad, Harda, Sehore and Narsinghpur – converging here to auction their produce.
This government-run ‘Krishi Upaj Mandi’ (farm-produce market) facilitates the auction of food grains through three separate auction units, one for rice, one for soyabean, and a third for wheat and Bengal gram. Anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 sacks of produce reach this market everyday, said R.S. Srikarwar, security authority at the mandi.
The auctioning is a laborious process. Farmers transport several quintals of grain in rented vehicles to the market and sometimes end up waiting for days out in extreme weather conditions for the auctions to take place. The ‘trolley auctions’ are relatively easier. Grains are displayed in and auctioned directly off from the trolleys in which they are brought to the market. But a majority of the produce brought to the mandi is sold through bori auctions that require them to be unloaded and displayed in mounds in open spaces before the auction, leading to much waste and damage.
Chaos and confusion reign at the market –farmers blame the government officials for delaying auctions by days on end. Ramdas, a small time rice farmer has been waiting for three days with his produce at a time when Madhya Pradesh is experiencing one of its fiercest winters with temperatures falling to 1 degree Celsius. “Initially they announced a bori auction,” said one farmer. “But once I had laid out the grain on the ground, the officials decided to hold a trolley auction instead. We have been waiting for the last three days for them to conduct the auction.”
Some farmers have been waiting at the mandi with their produce for four and even five days; bearing the burden of mounting rent on their vehicles as well as expense for food while they wait. Most come to sell their grains when there is an urgent need for cash, like a marriage in the family. But if in the end the produce doesn’t fetch a good price, they are forced to haul it back or sell it at a loss.
As the auction begins, small farmers are left watching helplessly on the fringes as dealers crowd around mounds of grain, spending not more than 10 seconds to determine the quality while the government-deputed auctioneer calls out prices. Within a minute, the produce is sold and the auctioneer and traders move on to the next mound. “We are experienced enough to determine the quality by looking at and tasting the grain,” said Ashish Dubey, a dealer who buys for the Itarsi Oil Mill, as he popped some Soyabean into his mouth from a mound that was being auctioned. “My quality estimate doesn’t differ more than 2% from that of a testing laboratory”, he adds.
Once the sale takes place the labourers employed by the traders or the mandi move in to remove the grain; weighing and packing it into gunny bags to be transported to godowns or factories.
At the administrative office of the market, rice farmers angry at the mismanagement of auctions are holding a protest. But complaints like these are met with apathy. “Even when we refuse to sell our grains in protest, the government uses the police to beat us up, instead of pulling up the officials here,” said the leader of the local rice farmers union.
This year the rice farmers are faced with greater misery than others. Even though Madhya Pradesh produced a ‘bumper crop’ in rice this year, surpassing even Punjab, prices have dipped due to the increase in supply. The Basmati varieties that used to command a price of Rs. 2800 per quintal last year are now sold Rs.2000 and even Rs.1800.
Many farmers had allocated more crop area to rice, shifting from soyabean the prices of which have fallen in recent years, to rice which fetched good profits in the last season. “The government-imposed tax on soyabean exports led to a fall in prices that the farmer gets,” said Sardar Narvinder Singh, a Punjabi farmer who migrated to Madhya Pradesh in search of cheaper land. Soyabean is also a high maintenance crop with no guarantee of a good yield as opposed to rice.
Soyabean prices are especially dicey as they are subject to the fluctuations in the share market or the dabba market as the traders call it. “Sometimes the prices change every two hours depending on the market,” said Ashish Dubey.
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