In Rural UP, Farmers Worried About Big Machines, Transport As Harvest Season Starts

The unprecedented lockdown over the coronavirus pandemic has come at a very bad time for the country's agriculture sector - this is the season of harvesting and selling the Rabi or winter crop, and by next month farmers will start preparing for planning the summer crop - paddy, pulses being the important ones. A lockdown at this time means farmers are very worried. 

30 kilometres out of Lucknow, 55-year-old Ram Prasad, a marginal farmer is worried his perishable cucumber crop, that he planted in December last year will rot away in his fields without being sold at the local mandi (wholesale vegetable market). Mr Prasad says he spent Rs 17,000 on planting the crop. In a normal year, the returns from the crop would be at least Rs 50,000, but this year is different. The reason - a countrywide lockdown over coronavirus. 

"Where should I take it and where should I sell it," asks Mr Prasad. When reminded that the Uttar Pradesh government has said that mandis will remain open, the farmer says, "Okay, technically I can take this produce to the mandi but how will I take it if no vehicle is available? Also the mandis are opening between 2 am and 5 am in the morning and then it shuts. If you get late, the police hits farmers. I tried but whoever I ask says I will not go, 'danda kaun khaayega' (who wants to get beaten up?), the drivers say," Mr Prasad adds. 

But the biggest worry is the harvest of wheat - the biggest Rabi season crop. This harvest should have gathered steam by now and machines like combined harvesters that can finish work in a few hours - should have been a common sight across states like Uttar Pradesh. Three days ago, the UP government ordered the free movement of combined harvesters, threshers and tractors across the state. Shops for repair of agriculture tools or machines would be allowed to open, the government order said, adding that farmers would not need any permission to harvest their crop. 

On the ground, the picture seems a little different. In Mahona village, some farmers did manage to hire smaller thresher machines, but elsewhere in the same village, farmers like 45-year-old Ram Naresh Rawat tell us they have not found a harvester for hire and farm labour has been difficult to find too. "It is very difficult to find labour. Everyone is scared they will fall ill if they work in others' fields. The harvester finishes everything in a day... doing it manually will take a week. Earlier, we could find harvesters on the road and hire them... this time we have not found any machines. The government is facilitating things but I think people are not coming out on the roads," says Mr Rawat. 

Near the Lucknow-Delhi National Highway, a shop that repairs agricultural tools and implements opened up four days ago after being shut for over 10 days. "My work is down. A lot of people are under the impression my shop has not opened up. When I do not get repair tools in the market, how will I repair the machines? 'Kaam main mazaa nahin aaya is baar (the work has not been adequate this time)," says Mohd Ibrahim, the mechanic who owns the repair shop. 

Things may yet improve as far as the harvest is concerned, but the next big worry - procurement. Will rural markets and mandis open up full time in the near future to facilitate full scale procurement?