GUWAHATI: The break in the farmer-consumer chain amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown has taken heavy toll on villagers along the Assam-Meghalaya border, with many of them confined to their homes and unable to sell their crop to procure kitchen essentials in the nearby markets.
At Adokgre in North Garo Hills, for instance, close to 3000 agriculture-dependent families across 49 villages have been at the receiving end over the past four weeks, as the bananas and the areca nuts, which grow in abundance, have started to ripen and even rot.
“There would be roughly about 70 families on an average in each village in the Adokgre area. Many are struggling to make ends meet as they have not been able to sell their prime produce – bananas and areca nuts – along with the broom sticks they make to procure basic kitchen edibles in the markets at Adokgre and Dhupdhara,” Denilson D. Samgma, adviser, Adokgre Farmers Association, told The Shillong Times on Saturday.
The association, for its part, has been distributing basic food items such as rice, lentils, potato and salt, among residents of 15 villages so far.
“We would have distributed the relief among all the villages but for limited funds,” Sangma rued.
The situation along the inter-state border in Goalpara and Kamrup districts is not different either.
“We invest about Rs 2 lakh on organic farming of vegetables across 10 bigha land while expecting a return of Rs 6 to Rs 7 lakh. But lack of market linkages owing to the lockdown over the past four weeks has dashed all hopes of any profit this year,” a farmer in the Rangjuli area of Goalpara district, said.
“So much so, we have had to dump huge quantities of vegetables and fruit. Most of us have taken loans given the high input costs associated with organic farming and it will be difficult to repay them if the situation remains like this for long,” he said, while recounting tales of woes of farmers in the area.
The inclement weather too is compounding the woes of many villages across the Ukiam-Langpih stretch.
“The weather has snapped road communication in the area and a relief distribution programme which was scheduled for today had to be deferred. We had intimated the district administration about the plight of about 500 families residing across villages between Ukiam and Langpih,” Anindro Marak, president of Garo National Council (Kamrup district), told this correspondent.
“As it is, about 500 families have been worst affected as a majority of them are dependent on transportation of the limited farm produce to the weekly markets in Boko. But for the lockdown, they have not been able to move out of their homes to sell their produce for buying basic food items with the income earned on that day,” Marak said