Vegetable prices soar in the run up to proposed farmers' stir

Vegetable prices on Tuesday rose sharply in western Madhya Pradesh and serpentine queues of people making bulk purchases were witnessed in the Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Vegetable and Fruits Market.

It is the state’s biggest market and some merchants there said that the price rise was due to people hoarding vegetables in view of the 10-day nationwide farmers’ stir slated to start on June 1.

Prices of almost all vegetables at the Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Vegetable and Fruits Market had shot up, they said.

A cauliflower was selling at Rs 25 on Tuesday against the normal rate of Rs 10.

A kilogram of lady finger was priced between Rs 40-45 against the earlier rate of Rs 20-25.

Over 100 organisations have appealed to farmers to abandon the supply of vegetables as part of the 10-day “gram bandh” (village shutdown) protest.

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These farmers’ organisations are demanding that the Union government announce a fixed remunerative price for farm produce including vegetables and milk.

Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Mahasangh president Shiv Kumar Sharma, who is spearheading the farmers’ protest, said,” We have asked cultivators to stay put in the villages from June 1 to June 10 in support of their demands.”

“They have been asked to neither sell vegetables and milk in the cities, nor make purchases from urban areas,” he added.

“I appeal to the people living in cities to visit villages to buy vegetables and milk and extend their support to the farmers during the 10-day protest,” Sharma, popularly known as Kakkaji, a former RSS ideologue, said.

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Western Madhya Pradesh had witnessed large scale violence during a farmers’ protest that left six cultivators dead in police firing in Mandsaur district on June 6 last year.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to hold a condolence-cum-public meeting in Mandsaur on June 6 and the area is witnessing heavy police deployment for it.