Farmers across the Cauvery Delta have urged the Tamil Nadu government to accelerate paddy procurement and immediately clear accumulated stocks from Direct Procurement Centres (DPCs), warning that prolonged open-yard storage is threatening grain quality and choking fresh purchases during the ongoing summer harvest season. The appeal, voiced by farmer organisations in Tiruchi on 13 July, comes as thousands of bags of paddy reportedly sit exposed at procurement yards across Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, and Mayiladuthurai districts.

Scale of the Backlog

The short-duration summer paddy crop was cultivated on approximately 1.60 lakh acres across the Delta, with sowing beginning in April. Procurement commenced in the last week of June and is scheduled to run through August. Farmer representatives estimate that many centres are currently holding between 10,000 and 15,000 bags of procured paddy that have remained in the open for several days — a volume they say is unprecedented for this stage of the season.

How Procurement Slowed Down

Farmer organisations allege that daily procurement throughput at several DPCs has dropped sharply. Centres that were initially processing around 1,000 bags per day are now reportedly handling only 500 to 600 bags daily. According to farmer bodies, the root cause is a breakdown in the logistics chain: procured paddy is not being moved from DPCs to Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation (TNCSC) warehouses and onward to hulling mills at the pace required. The usual practice of transporting paddy soon after procurement has not been followed this season, they said.

Impact on Farmers

With procurement staff allegedly reluctant to accept additional arrivals for fear of further congestion, many cultivators are being forced to store harvested paddy at their own cost while they wait for a slot at the centres. Farmer representatives described the situation as a case of administrative mismanagement, alleging that officials are awaiting further directions before moving the accumulated stocks. Prolonged open storage, they warned, risks weight loss, discolouration, and other quality deterioration — losses that ultimately fall on the grower.

What Farmers Are Demanding

Farmer organisations have called on the state government to ensure the immediate dispatch of accumulated stocks to TNCSC warehouses and hulling units, restore daily procurement to full capacity at both DPCs and Point of Procurement centres — each designed to handle 1,000 bags per day — and put in place a monitoring mechanism to prevent similar bottlenecks before the main season harvest arrives. The demands reflect broader anxiety that if the backlog is not cleared quickly, the summer procurement window, which closes in August, could end with a significant share of the crop unsold.

Wider Context

The Cauvery Delta is Tamil Nadu's most productive paddy belt, and procurement delays here have historically triggered political and agrarian unrest. This is not the first season that logistics gaps between DPCs and TNCSC warehouses have been flagged; similar complaints surfaced during the 2023 kuruvai season. The recurrence suggests a structural gap in procurement planning rather than a one-off administrative lapse. With the state's rice procurement targets under scrutiny and farmer distress a politically sensitive issue, the government faces pressure to act before quality losses compound the crisis.