Truckers' strike adds to soya farmers' woes
Sanjay Tiwari
Sunday, January 11, 2009, (Nagpur)
As the nationwide transport strike enters its seventh day, soyabean farmers in Vidarbha are feeling the pinch.
The region is already dealing with crisis among cotton farmers. And now the transporters strike is adding to their ever increasing problems.
Baliram Ghate, a farmer from Shivangaon, is getting impatient. Striking transporters have left him struggling to save his produce from rotting. His place is just over an hour's drive from Nagpur.
Ironically, till last week, he had been saving his 45 bags of soyabean till the markets hit a better price. Now he says he will glad with whatever he makes.
"A month ago I was not getting the right price for my crop. Now when the price is right the agent is telling me not to bring it to the market," a dejected Baliram said.
Lakhs of farmers like Ghate grow soyabean across Vidharbha, the second largest crop after cotton.
With the region's 70,000 trucks going off the roads, many of them are finding it difficult to find buyers willing to pick up their produce.
However, after a lull for five days, the markets witnessed some activity on Saturday as the strike by the transporters seemed to have developed some cracks.
"Small transporters who own one or two vehicles are coming back to work. Since they have to spend Rs 1500 a day towards expenses they could not afford to wait any longer and have come back to work," said Mohammed Afzal, a trader from Nagpur.
Farmers like Ghate will be hoping other truckers too come back to work and business can once again move smoothly again.