Telangana experiences worst kharif

Hyderabad: This Kharif season, which will end in less than a week, is one of the worst that Telangana has witnessed in terms of farmers’ suicides, deficit rainfall and damage caused to crops due to drought. The Kharif season begins on June 1 and ends on September 30.

The crop-sown area of paddy in Telangana districts has touched a 10-year low, thus raising fears of shortage of food grains and vegetables, besides escalation of prices – which are already high – altering the monthly budgets of middle and lower income groups.

Severe drought conditions continue to persist in four of the 10 districts despite a few spells of rain this month.

In this backdrop, the TS government has urged farmers not to go for paddy cultivation even in the ensuing Rabi season due to depleting ground water levels.

It is being feared that the reduction in the sown area of foodgrains will considerably bring down rice production this year, affecting the Food Security Act, which is set to be implemented from October. As per the latest report prepared by the agriculture department, the sown area of paddy has come down by 43 per cent and other food grains by 31 per cent.The report states that this is the lowest in the last 10 years.

“Kharif recorded a deficit rainfall of 13 per cent. But what damaged the crops badly were the prolonged dry spells in July and August, which witnessed a higher deficit, of 66 per cent and 31 per cent respectively. Four districts — Nizamabad, Mahbubnagar, Medak and Ranga Reddy — continue to witness dry spells,” said Mr Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, the minister for agriculture.

While the normal crop sown area in TS is 41.43 lakh hectare, crops to an extent of only 35.45 lakh hectare were sown in the Kharif season.

While the crop-sown area for food grains accounted for 20.65 lakh hectare, paddy comprised only 6.06 lakh hectares.