EP farmers can’t unload supplies at market

DAMMAM: Eastern Province farmers have criticized the municipality’s recent decision that limits the hours trucks carrying locally grown vegetables can enter the market. While there is no clear statement from the municipality why it has fixed a particular time for this, it seems the decision was taken to end traffic jams created by trucks queuing up to the vegetable market in Dammam.
The farmers told a local newspaper that the decision didn’t take into consideration the huge number of farmers coming to the market daily. They complained they can't unload their goods in just four hours because the market doesn’t have enough parking space that can accommodate hundreds of trucks carrying thousands of boxes.
Abdul Hakeem Mahfoud, a farmer, said some farmers have up to four trucks while some others have only one. The time it takes each farmer to unload his goods varies. Each truck needs around 90 minutes to unload.
Mahfoud said the municipality has allocated one platform for the local products in the vegetable market out of 11. This has prevented local farmers from putting down all their vegetables and therefore they had to sell them at lower prices somewhere else.
They demanded the municipality review its decision since it is negatively reflecting on their sales. “The municipality decided that we have only four hours to unload our goods into the market starting from 1 p.m. to 5 pm,” said Ali Al-Marzog, another farmer.
Al-Marzog said the decision shocked more than 400 farmers in the Eastern Province. Earlier, they unloaded goods between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.
The Dammam Traffic Department, on the other hand, had said earlier that the truck drivers had not been adhering to the hours they are allowed to enter the city. "They are not complying with our instructions to avoid the rush hours," said Ali Al-Zahrani, spokesman of the traffic department in Dammam.
However, the recent decision by the municipality added insult to the farmers' injury as another report by Al-Yaum daily showed that local vegetables witnessed a 75 percent drop in prices last year because of imported vegetables.