By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, May 29: The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown has hit citizens in no uncertain terms but it appears that farmers in the state have taken the maximum hit.
Farmers from several parts of the East Khasi Hills have been making it to temporary wholesale market set up at the Anjalee parking lot after spending a lot on transportation but in the absence of customers, they have been forced to dump their produce incurring severe losses.
This scribe, who visited the wholesale market on Saturday witnessed farmers dumping cauliflower, capsicum, mustard leaves and cucumber before calling it a day.
The irony is that these vegetables have been selling between Rs 100 and Rs 120 per kilogram in most markets across the city.
A farmer lamented that he had been coming to the market every day since Monday to sell his stock of cucumber but there were no takers for his produce as citizens were not permitted to come to the market due to the lockdown.
“Every day we have to dump our produce since there are more sellers than buyers,” another farmer lamented.
Every farmer had the same story to narrate. They were not earning enough to pay for the transportation charges they were paying every day.