BHUBANESWAR: Hundreds of farmers under the banner of Navnirman Krushak Sangathan (NKS), an Odisha-based farmers’ outfit, on Wednesday dumped vegetables, pulses, milk and peanuts on road at Chandikhole Chhak in Jajpur district protesting distress sale of their agriculture produces. The farmers of the district, who are battling distress sale of groundnut, pulses, coriander, milk and vegetables, alleged that they had earlier submitted a memorandum to the Jajpur district collector seeking his intervention for ensuring actual prices of their produces but it didn’t yield any results.
“The farmers had earlier submitted a memorandum to the collector seeking his intervention to ensure due prices of their produces,” farmers leader Akshaya Kumar said. “However, there has been no response from the district administration till now. Hence, they hit the streets today protesting the distress sale,” he added. Mr Kumar added that the farmers were demanding price, prestige and pension besides crop loan waiver.
At a Chasi Samavesh organised by the Jajpur district committee of the NKS, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, NKS advisor, said the development of the nation was not possible without providing solution to the problem of the farmers. Agriculture minister Dr Damodar Rout said the state government has formed an inter-ministerial committee to look into the farmers demand and the committee would soon come out with its recommendations.
“Odisha is a strange state where the land owners are not the real farmers. Share-croppers till the land and grow crops, - but they do not get any incentives nor compensations against crop losses. The inter-ministerial committee is looking into all these issues,” said the minister Dr Rout.
