APMC boycott by traders continues

Traders in all Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs) in Nashik district have boycotted onion trading in the market, preferring to make purchases outside. While this may be good news for farmers and consumers, who will all save money, the APMCs are facing a severe loss of revenue.

The vegetable and grain markets in APMCs are functioning normally. Lasalgaon APMC chairman Jaydatt Holkar said the boycott was likely to continue till Monday.

National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (Nafed) director Nanasaheb Patil said farmers might stand to lose in these transactions. “Earlier the APMC was the guarantor for the farmers’ payment and oversaw that the transaction remained transparent. The traders are buying onions outside the market now. There will be no uniform rate and in some cases the farmer may get low rates,” he said.

Recently all APMCs in Maharashtra had been boycotted by traders in protest against the open agriculture marketing policy of the state. Under the new APMC regulations, the agent’s commission will be charged to the trader, instead of the farmer.

Farmer and social worker Ashokrao Kapse claimed that many ‘adat’ (commission) agents are the traders themselves or their family members. “So the commission extracted from the farmer remains with the trader and the farmer is poorer,” he said.