Now, order your vegetables from home
Indian Express: With an aim to do away with the middleman, 134 farmers from Kalwadi village of Junnar taluka have come together to deliver vegetables at customer doorsteps through ‘Dial for Bhaji’ scheme. As per the scheme, inaugurate by Minister for Cooperation, Marketing and Parliamentary Affairs Harshvardhan Patil on Sunday, vegetable are priced at less than 40 per cent of the retail market rates.
Starting Thursday, these farmers will supply vegetables two societies on Kondwa Road and Bibvewadi before spreading the network across the city. The scheme is an initiative by Pune Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) that gives space to house the produce.
Ankush Kondhe of APMC said that they have given 200 sq ft free-of-cost to the farmers. “We are the facilitators of this scheme and we would want more such initiatives from other farmers,” he said.
The farmers from Junnar, led by Ajay Behlekar, said this will help them to directly sell their produce to the consumers without depending on middlemen. “We will be able to supply fresh produce directly to the consumers. Even after supplying the vegetables to the doorstep, we will be able to make profit,” said Behlekar.
Customers could place their order for vegetables by calling on 9552538190 or sending an email to kvm.kalwadi@gmail.com. The vegetables will be delivered every Monday and Thursday as per demand. Behlekar said Sunil Waman from Gomukh Sanstha, Digambar Deshmukh, the agriculture officer, and Sharad Waman, the sarpanch, helped the farmers to come out with this scheme.
With transport charges involved, the farmers will charge Rs 3 for purchase worth Rs 100.
The Kalwadi farmers’ group earlier sold vegetables directly to consumers from APMC’s premises at reasonable prices. Harshvardhan Patil, after inaugurating the scheme, said nearly 800 farmers’ associations from all over the state have been identified for establishing a direct link between farmers and end-customers. The minister hopes to launch the scheme in Mumbai, Nashik, Nagpur and Solapur.
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I was very eager to communicate with farmers’ group and organizers. I am from Kothrud Pune, are tired engineer having interests in social activities. I contacted Mr. Ajay Belhekar and Mr. Suneel Waman to get more idea about the progress of expansion of their scheme. But the replies were not very enthusiastic. As a consumer I wanted them to start the scheme ‘dial for bhaji’ in Kothrud area. But right now they are only operating from Gultekadi Market yard gala and two societies fro same area. I also contacted APMC PUNE to get some more information about their contribution in the said scheme. BUT NO REPLY. I feel really very sad when read the news like ‘truckloads of Kothimbir (coriander) is left rotten by farmers at Narayangaon market yard as Dalals stopped purchase.’ There are several cases like this in connection with perishable market mainly vegetables. But even after having so many APMCs all over the state near every town and city, no one is interested in doing market survey and gives average requirement of vegetables of major cities and guide farmers’ about vegetable market forecast. I have observed and learnt from some learned farmers and agriculture scholars that farmers are sometimes behaving like sheep’s. I somebody earns from Kothimbir or Onion, everybody runs after same vegetable without having any thinking of market demand and shelf life of their product. Same is the condition of consumers. They are shouting when prices shoot-up and jump with joy when vegetables are sold at throw away price. But no one ever thinks of long term solution. Dalals, wholesalers, middlemen are generally blamed that they are interested in making money and don’t take any risk. I don’t know how far it is true. But presently they are need of the market.
Dial for bhaji (direct marketing) is one very good attempt in the direction to reduce middlemen commission. But the network efficiency is the key word of this scheme. The final aim should be to give proper guidance to farmers and best service at reasonable rate to consumer. I wish best of luck to all concerned.