Cotton farmers reel under vicious grip of middlemen

Tandur: The hard work cotton farmers is going vain with middlemen doing zero business. They are deceiving farmers by false measurements. It is the brokers who are deciding the price for the produce and on the other hand officials are least concerned about the farmers' welfare.

The problems seem severe in Peddamul where the middlemen are using older balances instead of electronic weighing machines. They are deceiving farmers using wrong weights. There's an instance where a farmer family questioned a middleman for cheating them with wrong weights.

The middleman pacified them stating that it won't happen again. Allegedly, it is a known fact that the middlemen aren't paying tax to marketing department while transporting to other states. The farmers are forced to sell their produce to middlemen in spite of availability of cotton procurement centers.

This is because the brokers help farmers in crop investment in the form of fertilisers. The farmers urge officials of weights and measurements department and marketing department to come to their aid and provide justice.