Regarding the differences in the selling of agricultural products to the consumers, Negi said, "All the guarantees have been given to the farmers of the state, will be fulfilled. We are looking into resolving this issue and figuring out how to get farmers to sell their apples and other products in order to get a good price for their crops. The apples are sold in Kilograms in the Kullu area, but in Shimla, Kinnaur, Chamba, and other parts of the state, they are sold in boxes, which are not uniform; we are investigating this."
"I held an initial meeting with horticulture growers and legislators. I have directed the department to hold a meeting with the grower associations, and then we will hold a meeting with the Secretaries to decide on the next roadmap for farmers," said horticulture minister Jagat Singh Negi.
He stated that the state government has approached the union government to have the prices of apples and other fruits equal to what farmers in Jammu & Kashmir are receiving. He stated that the Department would soon make a decision on the Universal carton for apple packaging so that farmers could sell equal-weight fruit in the market.
"By the end of February and March, we hope to have finalized the implementation of Universal cartons for packaging, and a decision will be made as soon as possible so that farmers can get material," he added. He stated that if the central government buys apples from Jammu and Kashmir, it should also buy apples from Himachal Pradesh and provide the same relief to farmers there.
"We will take up this issue with the union government so that we can help the farmers with both schemes of state and Union governments. Apart from that, we plan to purchase and operate apple processing plants under the MIS (market intervention scheme), so that farmer gluts are controlled and good quality is rewarded," The Minister of Horticulture went on to say more.
Negi also stated that the monopoly of some private players, including the Adani group, to influence the market would be regulated, and that a policy would be developed soon.
"It is true that the Adani stores' controlled atmospheric (CA) stores and facilities buy the required fruit and influence the market. We are looking forward to developing a policy to regulate these two or three private players, which will be done after consulting farmers, and we will also try to give them fair prices, as promised in our manifesto," said Negi.
