Aurangabad: Upset over a trader offering one-sixth of the market price for his produce, a farmer in Osmanabad district has razed his entire one-acre cabbage crop.
Umaji Chavan, a resident of Jagdalwadi village of Omerga tehsil, said the price offered by traders who buy these vegetables from farmers was so low that he was left with no option but to take the extreme step of razing the entire crop.
“I razed the entire cabbage field with the help of a tractor and a rotor,” Chavan told PTI on Friday.
Due to the ongoing lockdown – which is now over a month old in Maharashtra, where it was put in place before the national lockdown began – the demand, transport and sale of vegetables has become a big problem for farmers, he said.
“We tried to sell cabbage in the market at Omerga, which is 20 km away from my village. We were offered Rs 20 for 50 kg produce. The price I was offered is almost one-sixth of the normal selling price in the market,” he said.
“I have spent almost Rs one lakh to cultivate the cabbage crop on the one-acre field. I expected a reasonable return on investment but had I sold the produce at the asking rate, I would not have got even one-fifth of the amount I put in,” Chavan said.
“There are big markets like Solapur and Hyderabad, where I could have got a better price. But Solapur is 100 km from my village, and Hyderabad is 200 km away. Transportation to these cities amid lockdown is difficult,” he said.