Farmers unable to get guaranteed price for paddy

Private traders were purchasing paddy at the threshing floor for prices less than Rs.35 though the guaranteed price was Rs.42.

Paddy cultivators who enjoyed a bumper harvest during the Maha season are now in a predicament for want of a market for their produce.

They said the paddy purchasing scheme of the government was a failure and that private traders who took the advantage of the situation purchased paddy for a song regardless of its loss to the farmers.

Meanwhile, representatives of agrarian organisations in Walawa said private traders were purchasing paddy at the threshing floor for prices less than Rs.35 though the guaranteed price was Rs.42. They said it was just a dream to sell paddy for the guaranteed price.

However, a senior official of the Paddy Marketing Board (PMB) said necessary arrangements to purchase paddy for the guaranteed price had been made. “Purchasing will commence after receiving funds from the government. Several farmers who had not cultivated their fields received fertilizer subsidies due to an error in documentation, but it is not a fraud. Farmers who abandoned paddy cultivation in the Maha season and obtained the subsidy will not be entitled to receive it during the Yala season,” he said.

On the other hand, agrarian organisations in the Polonnaruwa District expressed concern over leaving paddy cultivators to the mercy of private traders. They said private traders were purchasing Nadu for Rs.24 a kilo and Samba for Rs.28 a kilo.

However, Polonnaruwa PMB Regional Manager R.M.G. Ratnayake said 18 paddy purchasing centres were now functioning and that farmers could bring their stocks of paddy.