Bonnie Konyak
Dimapur | March 29
Responding to the invitation by the Agricultural Produce and Marketing Committee (APMC), ginger farmers from all over the districts of Nagaland had earlier converged at the Agri-Expo site, 4th Mile Dimapur to sell their goods to the APMC. However to their dismay the buyer i.e. the APMC Kohima has rejected 70 to 80 percent of the 370 Matric Tons of ginger brought in so far.
The State Government had distributed free ginger seedlings to the farmers as project on the occasion of the Year of Farmers and the APMC in every district was to provide marketing linkages to the farmers for selling their products. The APMC was also provided with interest free loans for the transportation of the ginger from different districts. However the farmers were utterly dismayed to find that the APMC had rejected truck loads of their produce on grounds of being of inferior quality. It was further disclosed that the preferred ginger variety of the APMC was the “Nadia”, which was different from the local ginger variety. However the farmers had been distributed a mixed variety by the government for cultivation.
The farmers who have been at the site for 10 to 11 days now, said that the APMC had failed to provide them with proper guidelines on the kind of goods that would be accepted and had neither warned them that the goods must be graded and the rules and constitution were drawn up a day after they had arrived and hence they were stranded in Dimapur with the goods and without payment. Further, the farmers and their representatives explained the trouble they had gone through to bring the goods from different districts, adding that the Undergrounds were much more reasonable than the people at the police, municipals, Excise and Forest gates who had to be paid huge amounts to let the trucks pass and that now with the APMC refusing to buy the goods, they are left helpless.
However the APMC officials said that the committee could not send just anything to the markets outside and that quality product was necessary if Nagaland was to enter the commercial market and the farmers were not aware of this fact. They continued that the farmers had on impulse brought a lot of low quality ginger and was now insisting that the goods be bought by the APMC which would be rejected in the commercial markets resulting in the Committee incurring huge loss. Commenting on the hitches that were being faced by the farmers, Joint Secretary APMC, Lithrongla Chishi said that since the state was in the initial stage of initiating such a venture there might be some loopholes, which would be rectified in the long run.
It was brought to light that no member of the APMC Kohima, who are the actual buyers and in whose name the loan for transportation of the produce had been released, have turned up at the site since the launching of the event. Decisions on what to do with the rejected ginger is yet to be arrived at even as the APMC said that it was the farmers’ problem. Meanwhile, the farmers and their representatives are stranded in Dimapur as they wait for their fate to be decided with the rejection or acceptance of the fruits of their labour.
Morung Express News
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