The wheat crop on Sukbhir Singh’s four acres of land 20 km from Ludhiana in Punjab will be ready for harvest next week. Plentiful rain and ...
The wheat crop on Sukbhir Singh’s four acres of land 20 km from Ludhiana in Punjab will be ready for harvest next week. Plentiful rain and an unusually cold winter, said the farmer, is set to increase the yields.
But he is worried about the lockdown: would he be able to harvest and transport the grain under the current conditions?
On March 24, the central government announced a 21-day lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus in India. However, it took three days for the government to realise that agricultural activities would be hit by the lockdown. On March 27, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs amended the lockdown order to include agricultural activities in the list of essential services allowed to function during the lockdown.
But this has not allayed Singh’s fears.
Before placing the country under lockdown, the government failed to announce food and wage support for the poor, triggering panic among daily-wage workers, many of whom decided to head back to their villages.
While harvest is largely mechanised in Punjab, farmers depend on workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh for many other tasks like loading and transporting grain. Their absence would affect the operations. Further, farmers anticipate difficulty navigating the police restrictions to reach the mandis....
