NEW DELHI/SINGAPORE — A severe shortage of labor, triggered by India's 21-day lockdown to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, will disrupt harvesting of winter crops in the world's second largest producer of staple food grains, such as wheat. The northern bread basket states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh rely on farm laborers from eastern India, but after the lockdown began on March 24, most of them returned home to their villages. "We've never seen anything like this," said Ramandeep Singh Mann, a farmer from Punjab, whose family grows wheat, rice and cotton on more than 45 acres (18 hectares) and would employ about 10 workers if they used mechanical harvesters. "We've no-one at all for harvests." Mann is just one of thousands of farmers concerned he will be unable to get mechanical harvesters to fields or even manage to gather by hand crops likely to be ripe in mid-April.

Source: International New York Times April 01, 2020 09:50 UTC