Jagan Mohan Reddy demands that Markfed should buy chillies for rescuing farmers Read more at: http://www.merinews.com/article/jagan-mohan-reddy-demands-that-markfed-should-buy-chillies-for-rescuing-farmers/15923990.shtml&cp

Demanding that the state government should bring in Markfed to take over the responsibility of buying the chilli crop as the farmers are in distress, leader of Opposition in Andhra Pradesh Assembly, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has said that Chandrababu Naidu has been continuing his anti-farmer policies.

Interacting with farmers at the Market Yard in Guntur on Friday he said,"Spurious seeds were sold indiscriminately and the output has fallen drastically and the input cost has increased steeply but the farmers are not getting the MSP and the rates have drastically fallen. Unless, the AP Markfed (Andhra Pradesh State Cooperative Marketing Federation) takes up the responsibility of buying the produce at a reasonable price, farmers would be badly affected.

 "After all the input cost is taken into account, farmers are hardly getting any viable amount to cover the expenses while the cost of production has been increasing and the farmers have been sleeping in the market yard for the past four to five days as they cannot sell the produce and even cover the input cost," he added further.

He deplored that when compared to the previous year, the price has come down by 60 per cent but there was no support from the government side.

"When we have asked the government to buy the stock the price has still fallen and farmers are unable to get any money worth their labour," he said.

Reddy said that the state should buy the produce at a reasonable price above the MSP as it has boasted of setting up of Market Stabilization Fund which did not take off leaving the farmers in the lurch. Loan waiver did not materialise and banks are unable to give fresh loans to farmers.

The state has been party to selling of spurious seeds at exorbitant prices which has badly affected the crop and added to that the high input cost, low yield and lack of support price has put the farmers in distress, he said and demanded that Markfed should immediately come to the rescue of farmers.