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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Mango farmers selling produce at roadside for better returns -Himanshu Kaushik

-The Times of India
 

AHMEDABAD: Consumers are having a grand time gobbling up succulent mangoes. Not just because of the fall in wholesale market price, but also because now some enterprising farmers in Saurashtra are bypassing market yards and taking their produce directly to the consumer by selling them at the roadside.

Farmers say that not only do they get low prices in the market yard, but are also forced to pay commission and market taxes. The prices of kesar mangoes were between Rs 20 and Rs 30 in the market yard. "Of this around 10% is taken as commission by market traders leaving the farmer with Rs 18-27 per kg," said a member of the market yard. He said that if a farmer sells produce outside the market, he gets Rs 30-35 per kg and earns around Rs 100 or Rs 150 more per 10-kg box. Charging of commission from a farmer is illegal, but there seems to be no political will to stop the practice.

Kishan Patel, a farmer selling his produce outside in Talala, says that instead of going to the Agriculture produce market yard, he prefers to sell his mangoes outside. "For the past 10 days, I have been selling my mangoes outside and passersby stop and buy them as they find them cheaper than in the retail market in Talala. Along the Somnath-Veraval and Somnath-Junagadh road, one finds several such farmers selling produce outside the retail market.

"We sell around 100 or 150 boxes a day since this is vacation season, people from several parts of Saurashtra and even North Gujarat drive down to Somnath, Diu or Gir forest and on their journey home stop and buy a couple of boxes," said Kishore Patel, a resident of Vanthali.

One finds lots of such traders even on the route to Diu. A director of Talala APMC, who asked not to be identified, said that incoming produce at Talala market yard has fallen drastically as the farmers weren't getting good prices. Primarily this is because of the bad crop this year, but also because of low prices for produce at the yard this year." He said mango is grown on 6,750 hectares in Amreli, while in Junagadh it is grown on 31,000 hectares.