Covid-19 lockdown: Farmers gather record wheat crop, but cannot move it

The country-wide lockdown has led to a labour shortage across rural India, crimping the harvest and preventing the bagging and movement of it

Late last month, Sukrampal had to beg and borrow farmhands from nearby villages to gather his part of the country's largest-ever wheat harvest in Haryana state near New Delhi.

Now the 50-year-old Indian farmer has a bigger problem: how to sell his crops when the three wholesale grain markets serving growers in his hometown of Gharaunda, near the heart of what is known as India's breadbasket, are operating with a skeleton staff.

The country-wide lockdown, introduced in late March to stem the spread of the new coronavirus, has led to a labour shortage across rural India, crimping the harvest and