Farmers in UP's Amroha run tractors over cauliflower crops as prices crash to Rs 1/kg

Farmers in UP's Amroha run tractors over cauliflower crops as prices crash to Rs 1/kg

Facing heavy losses after cauliflower prices plummeted to just Rs 1 per kg for over a week, farmers in Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha district are destroying their standing crops using tractors.

Cauliflower farmers here typically sell their produce to local markets, which supply larger mandis in Delhi-NCR and Uttarakhand.

This season, the crop was cultivated over 5,000 hectares in Amroha. However, while the wholesale price has crashed, the same cauliflower is being sold to consumers at Rs 10-Rs 15 per kg in retail markets.

The middlemen reportedly benefit from the price disparity, as per the Times of India.

Laal Singh Saini, a farmer from Mohammadpur Patti, said, “We spend Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 per bigha on growing cauliflower and cabbage. Initially, Wholesale prices were stable at Rs 30-Rs 40 per kg in December and January. But, as supply surged, rates collapsed. Now we are being forced to clear our fields.”

Another farmer, Mahendra Saini from Kalyanpura village, said, “I cultivated cauliflower on eight bighas, but with no buyers, we had to destroy the crop to prepare for the next sowing season.”

Jagatveer Saini, another affected farmer, added, “We invested heavily in ploughing, saplings, fertilisers, irrigation, and pesticides, spending up to Rs 10,000 per bigha. But now, we cannot even recover the production cost.”

In Delhi, cauliflower is being sold at around Rs 300 per quintal, but farmers struggle to afford transport costs to larger markets.

Amroha district horticulture officer Santosh Kumar attributed the crash to overproduction, saying, “Last year, farmers got good prices, leading to large-scale cultivation this year. However, since most of the crop was sown at the same time, it matured simultaneously, flooding the market and causing the price drop.