Farmers seek payment from Lahore based company
HUNZA, April 29: The small farmers of Hunza-Nagar have sought help from the federal and Punjab Government in ensuring their payments of Rs. 5.2 million from a Lahore-based company. Talking to media persons in Aliabad, the representatives of the farmers said that Chaudhry Masood Ahmed, the contractor of Pepsi Cola International, Lahore, lifted 3,290 bags of potato from 1,040 small farmers in 2009 on promise of making payments of Rs5.2 million within 10 days but never returned.
The farmers had to incur Rs37 million loss due to poor production of potato as the contractor had provided substandard seed to them.
We approached the contractor in Lahore on his given address in Lahore but the in laws of the contractor threatened us, they said.
We have registered an FIR # 92/10 against the contractor in Gilgit Police station for giving fake cheques to some of the farmers, they informed. [DAWN]
Very sad manmade disaster. This is what happens when small farmers are dependent on material inputs such as seed and fertilizer. Can farmers could be linked with inurance windows for poor harvest? The seed company might have some kind of agreement for crop failure!
Darjat
It is due to negligence of local agent .localagent is also responsible in this case. local agents are not maintaining proper legal agreement and just thinking their on commission.