Punjab cotton farmers face distress sale

Rise in the cotton output and lack of infrastructure with procurement agencies in Punjab, is forcing farmers towards distress sale.

To prevent this, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today urged the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) to participate in the procurement process along with Nafed and Markfed in all the 27 mandis in the state.

According to the chief minister it will not be possible for Markfed to lift all the 200,000 bales of surplus cotton expected to reach these mandis. Procurement of cotton started on October 1 in the state.

In a letter to union Textile Minister Shankersinh Vaghela, Singh said the Punjab State Co-operative Supply & Marketing Federation Ltd (Markfed) was working as an agent on behalf of Nafed and was geared up to meet the challenge in all the 27 mandis.

"The CCI's decision to procure cotton only in 13-14 mandis, may lead to distress selling of cotton in many mandis, covered either by the CCI or the Nafed through Markfed," the chief minister said in the letter. The CCI must cover all the 27 mandis together with Nafed to prevent such a situation, he added.

Singh said the state government was expecting a bumper crop of cotton this season. The central government had named the National Agricultural Co-operation Federation of India Ltd (Nafed) and the CCI as nodal agencies for procurement of market surplus cotton under the price support scheme, he said.

The market surplus is expected to be around 2.2 million bales. "Both the Nafed and the CCI do not have adequate infrastructure to ensure smooth procurement of cotton in the state," he said.

Singh said the central government should intervene quickly to save cotton farmers from going for distress sale.

"It will frustrate them and push them towards a debt trap as they had invested heavily for a bumper cotton crop this year," he said.

The chief minister also reviewed the progress of the paddy procurement and urged Union Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution Minister Sharad Pawar to immediately relax the specifications regarding moisture content, discolouration and damage caused to the paddy due to un-seasonal rains to enable the procurement agencies, particularly the FCI, to accelerate the slow pace of paddy that was causing lot of resentment amongst the farming community.

In his letter to Pawar, Singh has sought relaxation in moisture, damaged/discoloured/sprouted and immature/shrunken/shrivelled paddy grain from the present specifications. Singh said in 2001, a similar situation had risen and the Centre had relaxed the specifications for paddy .

He also requested Pawar to personally intervene in the matter and get the paddy and rice specifications relaxed as proposed without any quality cut in prices as done earlier. Of the 924,000 metric tonnes of paddy procured in Punjab so far, government agencies have bought 586,000 metric tonnes and 330,000 metric tonnes of rice miller.