Vendors at exclusive local food market struggle to find buyers

Eastern Mirror Desk

Dimapur, Jan. 18: Local food products in Dimapur continue to attract negligible interest from consumers as could be judged from the largely unoccupied sheds at the four-month-old ‘Local Products Daily Market’ located behind the Supermarket area.

Over the course of those four months, the market has not indicated favourable outcome for its vendors. The ‘Local Products Daily Market’, an initiative of the Farmer Producers Organisation (FPO) of Dimapur district, was opened on Sep. 4, 2018.

Various local products like bamboo shoot, tomato, bitter gourd, bitter eggplant, yam, orange to name a few, sourced from various districts of the state are sold at the market.

When the market was inaugurated, the FPO secretary Neivizonou Nyekha had said that the organisation was helping farmers since 2011 by providing seeds, equipments, tools, and assisting them in obtaining benefits from various schemes. But the farmers incurred losses as there was no market for them to sell the products. So the organisation decided to establish a marketplace which would exclusively sell local food products.

However, the vegetable vendors—mostly women—barely make a sell. Eastern Mirror visited the market recently; only to find there were hardly any customers.

The vendors who come from Diezephe, Seluophe (to name but two) sit from sunrise to sunset selling food products sourced from their backyards but the response they receive (in terms of number of buyers) is discouraging, said one of them.

Despite the poor business ‘since the day of inauguration’, they continue to sit as they do not want to give up on their venture.

‘It is disappointing to see our own people buying synthetically grown vegetables when we are seated not far from Supermarket and no one bothers to make a query about our vegetables that are organic (sic) and sourced from our districts,’ lamented Chingla Yimchunger.

Yimchunger sells kidney bean or commonly known as ‘kholar’ along with other vegetables sourced sourced from Shamator town in Tuensang district. But it has been more than a month since she last sold a cup of kholar, she said.

That particular day, there were only four vendors in the entire marketplace: Alemla Ao, Achang Zeliang, Kuthokhrulu Chakesang and Chingla Yimchunger. They sit from 6 am to 4 pm and pay a monthly tax of INR 200. At times, they make it to the market as early as 4 to 5 am hoping to sell when buses from other districts reach the station located right next to the market.

Even though the state’s department of Horticulture has installed a cold chamber storage in one of the sheds for the vendors’ benefit, they said it was currently of no help because of the low-sell. ‘We cannot store vegetable for days/weeks. They are perishable items.’

Governor PB Acharya had donated INR 2 lakh to the organisers to buy a pick-up truck, which could transport the vendors’ food products to the marketplace. “The facilities are satisfactory and more than what we expected, but what is the benefit of the facilities when we are not able to make any sell or meet our expenses,” one of the vendors said.

They pointed out that on Wednesday’s people throng the “weekly Wednesday bazaar” along the Supermarket but ignore the ‘Local Products Daily Market’, which is just a stone’s throw away. So, instead they find themselves a place at the weekly market to sell their products!

Asked what could be the reason behind the people’s lack of interest, they suggested ‘it could be because the market is small and customers mostly look for one-stop marketing.’