Former minister Jogu Ramanna slams State, Centre over soybean procurement

Former minister Jogu Ramanna led a BRS protest demanding soybean procurement without quality restrictions, criticizing both State and Union governments for harassing farmers, who faced financial losses and poor market conditions

Adilabad: Former minister Jogu Ramanna asserted that both the State and union government were harassing farmers by not procuring soybean produce. He along with BRS cadres staged a sit-in on Adilabad-Chandrapur national highway 353/B demanding procurement of soybean produce without imposing restrictions here on Friday.

Activists and leaders of the BRS blocked the traffic on the national highway protesting against restrictions on the quality of soybeans. They raised slogans against the State and Centre for causing inconvenience to soy farmers. Vehicular movement came to a grinding halt for a while following the agitation. However, police rushed to the spot and shifted the protesters to a nearby police station.

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Speaking on the occasion, Ramanna regretted that farmers were forced to sell their produce to private traders incurring huge financial losses for cultivating the oil seeds. He stated that the State and union government were harassing the growers by setting various norms. He said that the soy procured by the marketing department was returned by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED), citing poor quality and moisture content.

On Thursday, the agitating farmers locked marketing officials in a room at the Boath mandal centre protesting against the norms of NAFED.