December: Farmers led by their organizations are preparing to stage sit-ins at food depots across the country to press the government-owned Food Management and Trading Company(FMTC) to start purchasing paddy at the minimum support price set by the government from today(Sunday). 

One and a half months have passed ever since the government fixed the support price for the paddy. FMTC, however, has not started buying the paddy except from Bardiya’s Rajpur, according to All Nepal Peasants’ Federation. 

The Cabinet meeting on November 2 had decided to fix the support price for paddy for the current fiscal year 2022/23. As per the decision, price of thick-sized paddy is Rs 2,967 per quintal, and medium-sized paddy is Rs 3,128 per quintal. 

With the government’s delay, some farmers had sold out their produce to traders even before the government had fixed the support price for paddy at cheaper price. 
 

Paddy farmers have complained that delay to fix the minimum paddy price has stopped them from having profit. No different is the plight of sugarcane farmers. They have to agitate to press the government to fix the minimum price and sell their produce to every year.

Chairman of Nepal Peasants’ Federation Ganesh Chandra Timilsina says that blame game among the FMTC, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies is delaying the process to procure paddy from the peasants. 
 

“We are preparing to stage sit-ins in front of eight depots owned by FMTC except Rajapur”, said Timilsina. 
Farmers and peasants will stage sit-ins at FMTC’s Mahendranagar, Nepalgunj, Bhairahawa, Birgunj, Janakpur, and Jhapa depots from today.

Timilsina has said that their agitation and sit-in will continue until the government starts purchasing the paddy at the minimum price. Earlier, farmers led by All Nepal Peasants’ Federation and Nepal Peasants’ Federation had staged protest to press the FMTC to commence buying the paddy at Maitighar Mandala, Kathmandu, on Friday.