As the coronavirus outbreak has made the markets of Pune and Mumbai to be suspended, the sellers are now talking about going online. this will also help the economy to be stable and keep the food supply going on.
The farmer groups and producer companies have proven to be the real heroes to keep the nation feeding on fresh fruits and vegetables running in urban areas, along with the doctors and police officials.
After having a heartening look at the direct market intervention success, the planning to
make this permanent has begun under the supervision of the agriculture department with the help of applications built particularly for the vision.
The duty of supplying fresh vegetables and fruits fell on the shoulders of framer groups and producer companies after the markets of Pune and Mumbai decided to close down in the pandemic.
It was said by Suhas Diwase, agriculture commissioner that proper planning is being done to make sure that the places other than Pune and Mumbai are also getting on-time delivery of essential services and are looking for farmer production companies that could be deployed for particular areas, a total of 3000 of such companies worked to deliver
around 80,000 tonnes of fresh vegetables and fruits.
The direct sale of mangoes has been taken up by the agricultural department and
Maharashtra state agricultural marketing board.it was pointed out by Joint Director Vikas
Patil how the pandemic can intersect with the sales peak of the fruit marketing period.
Hapus which was one of the most valuable fruits in the export market has now seen itself
without buyers as the marketing places are closing their borders, especially Europe and the united states. He said the exports that were happening were to be in the Gulf countries as the people are facing issues with labour and others. This worked in the benefit of farmers as Hapus didi not arrive from Karnataka and the offseason rain of October reduced the flower production thus reducing the production by 40%.
Hapus from Ratnagiri has a captive market in Mumbai and Pune and through the
the department, we got housing societies to directly order from the farmers.
The housing societies that order a minimum of 100 boxed were assured for the delivery. The price was much more than the traders paid the farmers which were 350 per dozen. The people have to make the payments online before getting the delivery to minimize the contact as much as possible. To date, 50,000 such boxes have been delivered out of which 25,00 are in only Mumbai.
Patil said that still a lot of work needs to be done to enable the farmers and the mango
growers to reach the market directly.
The agriculture department is in deep talks with the stakeholders as we enter the 33rd day of the complete lockdown to make sure that the intervention of farmers with the market becomes a permanent feature.” our strength is the grower and we can assure the delivery of commodities with the help of farmer producing companies. We are looking out for the last connecting link that could help us make the commodities reach the common people. The app development for the purpose has been already in talks for how we can make it permanent.
