Gujarat APMC yards suspend trading to tackle Covid second wave

Agricultural Generate Internet marketing Committee (APMC) yards in Gujarat have suspended buying and selling routines following a sharp increase in Covid-19 positives, leaving farmers in the Condition sitting down on a pile of harvested winter season crops and a nervous good deal.

The Agricultural Generate Marketplace Committee (APMC) at Rajkot, a person of the largest marketplace yards in Saurashtra area, on Tuesday introduced suspension of buying and selling routines until further discover. The lawn is a main area of trade for jeera (cumin seed), cotton, pulses, groundnut, castor, wheat, onion and potato.

Blow to farmers

This has appear as a setback to farmers. “We have been waiting for authorities to procure wheat. I have about 50 quintals of unsold harvested wheat laying on my fields. We are in will need of money, but the marketplaces are closed until further discover. It is very unsure circumstance, and we are clueless what to do,” Tarshibhai Vekariya from Khamta village of Rajkot district told BusinessLine.

Vekariya has analyzed positive for Covid-19 and is under residence isolation as on Wednesday.

On the strains of Rajkot APMC, lots of other APMCs from the Condition suspended buying and selling routines to avoid gatherings at the lawn and protect against further distribute of the pandemic.

In North Gujarat, a further main APMC lawn, Unjha, introduced voluntary lockdown for seven days with infections increasing in the area. In a public discover on Monday, Unjha APMC claimed, “In check out of the current outbreak situation, a conference was convened by the civic authority of Unjha town with Unjha traders’ affiliation and marketplace lawn agents’ affiliation. It was collectively determined to voluntarily shut down the APMC lawn from April fourteen to April 21.”

Selling price & supply dynamics could alter

Unjha is the largest marketplace for seed spices which include cuminseed, corianderseed, fennel seed and fenugreek, in addition to other commodities.

The suspension of buying and selling at a time when the harvest year is at the peak could outcome into a blow to farmers.

On the a person hand, many commodities have demonstrated downtrend in price ranges above the previous a person week amidst fears of a attainable lockdown triggering need destruction. On the other, the suspended buying and selling would generate a supply glut.

As a outcome, farmers will flood the marketplaces with their generates when they resume buying and selling. This could further squeeze the price ranges following a sharp bounce in supplies inside a rather short time.

An onion producer from Morbi, Hussain Ali Khorjiya, knowledgeable that purple onion off-get has appear to a halt as marketplaces are not useful. The last traded value was ₹700 -800 a quintal. “But with consuming marketplaces like lodges, restaurants closed in lots of big metropolitan areas, price ranges have started declining. I am sitting down on a large pile of unsold onions. I harvested about two,400 quintals of onions on twenty acres. I have sold some above the previous couple of weeks, but however I am still left with a large unsold amount.”

He fears the price ranges to correct after marketplaces open up and get flooded. “We could have to encounter losses from the remaining crop,” he extra.

Between the districts the place APMCs are shut incorporate Jamnagar, Bhavnagar, Junagadh, Amreli, Mehsana, in addition to Morbi and Rajkot.