YSRCP demands govt to rescue Chittoor mango farmers from crashing prices

Tirupati: Farmers and YSRCP activists led by district president and former TTD chairman Bhumana Karunakar Reddy and former deputy chief minister K Narayanaswamy staged protests at a mango pulp processing unit at GD Nellore on Thursday.

Bhumana strongly denounced the manner in which the Andhra Pradesh govt had completely turned a blind eye to the crashing mango prices in Chittoor district, leaving more than 60000 farmers in dire straits this year.“The demonstrations by farmers in chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu’s home district highlight the severe distress of local farmers who are reeling under a massive market collapse since the peak harvest season.

The agitation stems from a drastic crash in the procurement price of Totapuri mangoes, which has plummeted to as low as 3-4 rupees per kg. At this rate, farmers cannot even recover their basic expenses for harvesting and transportation”, Bhumana explained.Former deputy CM Narayana Swamy alleged that the district’s thirty-one private pulp units have formed an unregulated syndicate to artificially suppress buying rates, exploiting the lack of official market oversight. “This financial strain is worsened by severe logistical bottlenecks, leaving hundreds of fruit-loaded trucks stranded outside processing plants for days, causing the yield to rot and forcing desperate growers into distress sales”, he alleged.The mango farmers and the YSRCP demanded that the state govt immediately declare a minimum support price for the crop and establish direct government procurement centers to eliminate exploitative intermediaries.