Dr. Avnish Jolly, Chandigarh, 22 nd October 2008 :Haryana Cooperative Supply and Marketing Federation’s (HAFED’s) Contract Farmers of Basmati paddy will get a price of Rs.100 per quintal more than the average highest market rate of Taraori Mandi for the paddy sold by them to the Federation during the current procurement. It was announced by Managing Director of HAFED, Mr. Sudhir Rajpal while addressing the Contract Farmers’ Meet organized at Kurukshetra today.
He said that during the current Kharif season as many as 756 farmers of Karnal, Kaithal and Kurukshetra districts had entered into contract farming agreement with HAFED for total of 4205 acres of land under CSR-30 Basmati paddy. Under this agreement, HAFED had provided the contract farmers with certified quality seed sourced from HSDC and Rice Research Institute, Kaul, extended to them advisory services of Saristi Gian Kendra free of cost and had also extended the facility of weather insurance to interested farmers for which they had to pay only about 25 per cent of the premium. Rest of the premium was paid by HAFED and the State Government.
He said that in order to encourage more and more farmers to benefit from the contract farming scheme of HAFED on regular basis, the Federation would pay additional Rs. 20 per quintal to those farmers who had also sold their Basmati paddy under contract farming to HAFED during the previous year for the produce sold by them to HAFED this year. Mr Rajpal also announced to extend the facility of free soil and water testing to all the 756 contract farmers after the harvesting of paddy this year in the Laboratory of The Thanesar Cooperative Marketing Society where these facilities were available. Farmers could contact the concerned District Manager of HAFED for any assistance in this regard.
The Managing Director also offered to facilitate medical insurance by sharing its premium with the contract farmers who sell their produce to HAFED. Under the Farmer Loyalty Programme, an attractive lucky draw scheme was also announced on this occasion for the next Kharif marketing season. All the contract farmers of basmati paddy who sell their contracted produce to HAFED this year and also during Kharif 2009 would be eligible for five prizes of one Motor Cycle each through a draw of lot.
Apart from basmati paddy, HAFED was also undertaking contract farming of Turmeric in Yamuna Nagar district, Desi wheat in Southern Haryana and was also facilitating contract farming of Barley through reputed private corporate houses in Gurgoan, Sirsa, Fatehabad and Hisar districts. Besides this, HAFED was also promoting Organic Growers Group in Kaithal, Kurukshetra and Karnal districts in which 1380 farmers were participating on about 1700 acres of land.