Pumpkin farmers face heavy losses amid market crash

By Dayaratne Embogama 

Vegetable farmers in the Mahawilachchiya area of  Anuradhapura who cultivated sweet pumpkin in the Yala season this year  have been in a predicament for want of a remunerative market for their  produce.   

They stated that the wholesale price of sweet pumpkin was less than Rs. 10 and that they were incurring significant losses.   

A vegetable farmer of Dunumadalawa S.S.U. Disanayake (32)  said he cultivated more than three acres of sweet pumpkin and that he is  in a predicament without being able to meet the cost. I spent  Rs.800,000 to cultivate three acres of sweet pumpkin. I carried a stock  of sweet pumpkin by tractor to the Thambuttegama Economic Centre. I had 35  gunny bags of sweet pumpkin, but only eight of them could be sold. I had to abandon the rest near the centre, exposed to the elements.

I paid Rs. 10,000 to four men for loading and unloading, and Rs.  10,000 for the hire of a tractor. I was at a heavy loss. Now I am not in a  position to pay for seed, two barrels of diesel for the water pump,  fertiliser and agro-chemicals purchased on credit,” he said.   

Farmers said Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa  recently visited the area and met them, and promised to take up the issue  in parliament.   

They requested the Minister of Agriculture to look in to  their predicament and to work out a plan to provide a remunerative  market for their produce.