Kuchinda in Sambalpur district has got two attractive agricultural produces having demands both locally and also in the national market. While the one is red chili, the other is the most attractive litchi.
When there is almost no problem for the litchi, the red chili farmers face many problems to sell their products and at times, also become victims of distress sale in the hands of the unscrupulous businessmen.
And to come to the rescue of the chili farmers, the local administration has prepared a master plan and the prime one being linking with the national market where Kuchinda chili has become an attraction.
In a preparatory meeting chaired by the sub collector of Kuchinda Chanchal Rana, people from different organisations including DRDA, APICOl, OUAT, RMC, the Horticulture department and many others took part and presented their valuable suggestion towards the non paddy crop. The speakers present not only said in favour of proper marketing, they also suggested for processing of chili includingpreparation of powder and sauce for better profit to the farmers.
“Chili processing could be of beneficial to the farmers than direct marketing,” said Nirupama Mishra, director of APICOl, Bhubaneswar. She also narrated the facilities available from APICOl for purposes of food processing industries.
The farmers present demanded for fixing minimum support price for chili so that the producers would not be the victims of distress sale.
Former MlA Brundaban Majhi demanded the RMC to purchase chili from the houses of farmers instead of asking them to come to the market yards for sale where they face many difficulties. He further suggested to link up different spice boards directly to the Kuchinda RMC so that things could be easier and farmers can get better price than the present one.
Sub collector Rana assured the farmers that she would take a positive step for the interest of the farmers since non-paddy crops need to be popularised.