Apropos of the editorial ?Process them? (FE, October 18), we are among the world?s largest producers of milk, eggs and banana. Yet, strangely enough, among perishable food items, these have recorded the highest price rise in the preceding three years. That the richer versions of milk products shoot up milk demand is understandable, but what about the lowly banana that had been for long the poor man?s sustenance. In the absence of a plan for processing fruit products, harmful practices of extended storage enable hoarders to control release into market and make profits on a degraded quality. Why blame them when the government does the same with rice and wheat sanguinely allowing it to rot in the open. On one hand, the procurement price is regularly hiked to please the farm vote bank, only to be wasted, and on the other, the consumer pays for the gross ineptness of the government. What is worse is that such high grain prices then provide the legitimacy for brazen inflation of price of everything else.
R Narayanan
Ghaziabad
