What’s happening to our fruits?
Something is happening to our local fruits. They are falling off the tree before they can fully ripen.
This is happening with pears, plums and peaches. The peaches look good from the outside but are full of worms at the core.
Those who are growing pears say they have not been able to harvest the pears in the last five to six years or more. No horticulturist seems to know the answer.
One of them dismissed the dilemma saying, “The tree must be old. Even people age and so do trees. How can we expect them to produce as much fruits as they used to do?”
Is that the right answer or just a simplistic one not based on any research? Has the State Horticulture Department undertaken a study of this phenomenon? Should they not?
There are many stories doing the rounds that the degeneration of all fruits trees coincides with the arrival of mobile phone towers in the city of Shillong and its suburbs. Some have even complained that their kitchen gardens do not yield as much vegetables as they used to. This is over and above the radiation effect on human beings and all living things. Several reports have appeared recently about the brain cancers that affect people who live within 200 metres of the mobile towers. Are we in Meghalaya bothered?
A young scientist in Lachumiere is able to measure the radiation levels from mobile phone towers in that area. It is frightening!
Fruits selling dirt cheap at the farm gate
A lady who has two huge pear trees laden with fruit in her garden was troubled by them falling by the dozens everyday.
One morning a man approached her with an offer. He wanted to buy off all the Lagoon pears left on the trees. The man offered Rs 60 per gunny bag of fruits (The gunny bag is the same one that holds a quintal of rice). It would have held at the very least 60 -70 kg of pears.
This means that the man bought the fruit at Re 1 per kg, literally. He was able to download 3 big sacks of fruit and paid the lady Rs 180; not a penny more.
In the evening when the lady went for her evening shopping at Laitumkhrah market she found the same man selling the same pears to a retailer at Rs 300 a sack. This works out to Rs 10 per kg.
The retailer sold it to unsuspecting customers at Rs 30 per kg and still had many buyers. All the while the lady looked on astounded!
She told someone, “Next season I will take the fruit personally to the retailer. At least I won’t feel cheated!
But this is the story that farmers face on a daily basis. They sell tomatoes at Rs 20 per kg. We buy it from the retailers at Rs 40 a kg.
The retailer who just sits in her shop waiting for farmers unload their stock makes a straight 100% profit.
One person asked, “What are all these so-called farmer friendly projects/programmes like the North East Community Resource Management Project (NERCORMP) initiated by IFAD been doing for so many years if they have not built farmers’ federations to empower farmers and give them bargaining power?” Good question indeed!
Some institutions are created with a purpose but soon become self-serving!
Women’s Resource Centre or political patronage?
The Government of Meghalaya has re-employed many of its superannuated employees especially those at the higher levels.
For instance, nowhere does the RTI Act state that a retired bureaucrat must necessarily become the State or Central Information Commissioner.
But for two successive terms we have had retired bureaucrats heading this office in Meghalaya. It has become the preserve of this biggest lobby group in the country.
It’s a different matter that the past and present incumbent have been worthy of the post because of their impeccable record as public servants.
The Government of Meghalaya is coming up with a State Women’s Resource Centre to be spawned by the Social Welfare Department .
Several qualified women activists had applied but some were not even short-listed.
Sources believe that the Director’s post is being carefully crafted out for a recently retired officer of the Social Welfare Department.
Some people, as Lou Majaw likes to croon, are “Forever Young.”
So the young must make room for these aphrodisiacal creatures who never grow old!