Fruits and vegetables farmers in Uttar Pradesh will not have to pay mandi fee for selling their produce. In an effort to boost ease of doing business and in the direction of doubling farmers’ income, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s UP government has announced to waive off mandi fee for 46 perishable fruits and vegetables. However, farmers will have to pay the user charge fixed by the state government if they sell these items in the mandi. UP agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi said that the amendment in the mandi laws is done to decentralise the sales of fruits and vegetables to regional areas and maintain social-distancing. Surya Pratap Shahi said that the farmers can sell their produce at a competitive price as traders can buy directly from the fields or the doors of the farmers. Earlier, the farmers had to take their produce to the mandis.
The move to liberalise farmers from the mandi regime got a thumbs up from agriculturists. “UP govt’s move to remove mandi fee and allowing the farmers to sell their produce from the field is a welcome step and it has brought a win-win situation. With the new move, the farmers will save the transportation cost, will follow social-distancing, get a competitive price of their produce and reduce the risk of wastage,” Pushpendra Singh, President, Kisan Shakti Sangh, told Financial Express Online. However, he said that the government must ensure that the traders will not cheat the farmers and will give the full payment at the time of taking the delivery of the agricultural produce.
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Once the farmers took their agricultural produce to the mandis, even if they did not get the appropriate price, they preferred to sell it at loss, as bringing them back would have incurred additional cost. In this case, the crisis of storage and the wastage also played an important role that made the farmers compromise. With the changes in the law, the farmers can now harvest the crops once the deal is done.
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“Waiving off mandi fee will be useful and I am happy about it but the farmers will still be exploited unless the distribution cost is subsidised. Everyone in the supply chain is getting disproportionate profits,” Ashok Vishandass, former Chairman, Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, told Financial Express Online. He pointed out the gap between farm prices and retail prices, with an example: Retailers are selling bananas at Rs 40 per kg, wholesalers are selling at Rs 23 per kg, while the farmers are selling at below Rs 10 per kg.
Meanwhile, last week, MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan had announced that exporters, traders, food processors, etc, can open a private mandi and can buy the agriculture produce by visiting the farmer’s land or house. The amendment in the mandi rules was said to be aimed at giving freedom to the farmers to sell their produce at a better price, and on their own choice. The minister had also called the move revolutionary and highly progressive for farmers’ benefit.