GUWAHATI: A central agency of late, has revealed that all is not going well for the farming community in Assam. Lack of an affective mechanism from the part of the government is to be blamed for the plight of these people who have been groping for a viable solution. The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices and the Cooperation and Farmers Welfare have maintain it on Friday at a meeting in Guwahati organized to discuss the agricultural costs and prices for the northeastern region.
The speakers in the meeting on kharif crop price policy chaired by Vijay Paul Sharma took serious note of the constraints faced by the farmers and stressed an urgent need to create an institutional mechanism like mandis with integrated facilities for ensuring remunerative prices for the farmers.The farmers straightly alleged lack of initiative from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and accused it of not procuring rice from the farmers. According to them, FCI did not have adequate rice procurement centres and the system was conductive to the working of the middle men. The FCI officials who were present countered that it had 40 centres which was adequate and that other issues would be resolved with cooperation from all concerned.
Assam agriculture secretary and director M S Manivannan along with the officials and other representatives from Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, FCI, Assam State Agricultural Marketing Board, Rice Millers Association attended the meeting
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