As the chances of another drought loom large, industry body CII has called upon the government to immediately delist perishables from the APMC list and give farmers the freedom to sell the produce directly.
“The government should uniformly implement the APMC Act across the states, by immediately delisting the perishables from the APMC list and giving farmers the freedom to sell fresh, perishable produce directly to food processing companies, aggregators and retailers,” CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said in a statement. To counter the adverse situation, he said, “Urgent measures are to be taken in the medium to long-run.”
“Together with the much-awaited agricultural reforms, there is a need to reduce the dependence of agriculture on the monsoons by adopting technologies like drip irrigation, developing drought-resistant quality of seeds, promoting rainwater harvesting, etc,” he added.
