From Reuters via Gulf News, Apr. 2:
New Delhi: A severe shortage of labour, triggered by India’s
21-day lockdown to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, will disrupt
harvesting of winter crops in the world’s second largest producer of
staple food grains, such as wheat.
The northern bread basket states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh
rely on farm labourers from eastern India, but after the lockdown began
on March 24, most of them returned home to their villages.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Ramandeep Singh Mann, a
farmer from Punjab, whose family grows wheat, rice and cotton on more
than 45 acres (18 hectares) and would employ about 10 workers if they
used mechanical harvesters.
“We’ve no one at all for harvests.” Mann is just one of thousands of
farmers concerned he will be unable to get mechanical harvesters to
fields or even manage to gather by hand crops likely to be ripe in
mid-April.
Late harvests mean lower yields, reduced returns, and a
smaller window to plant next season’s crops, as well as leaving crops
vulnerable to rain and hailstorms.....MORE
