Harvest Season Pushes Farmers Into Distress: 5.36 Lakh Acres of Paddy Damaged
Agriculture officers have thrown their hands up, unable to save the crop. They say only 15 to 20 per cent of the harvest is salvageable and more than 2.80 lakh farmers would face loss.
Kakinada: Cyclone Arnab devastated paddy fields, leaving thousands of farmers in the Godavari districts in distress and devastated, in a severe blow to the rural economy this week.
Paddy crop in more than 5.36 lakh acres in Kakinada, Konaseema, Eluru, East and West Godavari districts fell flat. If the water-logging continued for another day or two, the entire crop would be lost.
The farmers were getting ready to harvest the paddy within three to five days in East Godavari district, 10 days in West Godavari and other districts when the cyclone dashed the hopes of the farmers.
Agriculture officers have thrown their hands up, unable to save the crop. They say only 15 to 20 per cent of the harvest is salvageable and more than 2.80 lakh farmers would face loss.
Yalla Rambabu and Y Lova Prasad are cultivating paddy on seven acres, taking this on lease and investing `35,000 per acre. They were waiting for more than 10 days to reap a harvest of 34 to 38 bags of paddy per acre. “Now, we can’t recover the losses and clear the debt,’’ they said, sobbing.
The pity of it all is also that, if any input subsidy or crop insurance is provided by the government, that would go to the farmers, not the tenant farmers, they noted.
East Godavari joint director of agriculture B Venkateswara Rao, DAAT Centre professor Srinivasa Rao and two professors of the agriculture university visited Anaparthi, Bikkavolu and other areas on Thursday. Srinivasa Rao advised the farmers to drain out the rain water first and then spread the salt water. But the farmers refused to do this, saying that if they sprayed salt water, the paddy grain would fall down.
The cyclone has exposed the vulnerability of paddy cultivation in the face of extreme weather, even where farmers have attempted to reduce their risks by choosing alternative varieties. MTU 7029, popularly known as Swarna, is widely cultivated in the Godavari region, but is susceptible to lodging, in which strong winds and heavy rain cause the crop to fall over.
Scientists discovered MTU 1318, considering it as more resistant to lodging. Farmers also cultivate Sampad Swarna that’s resistant to lodging. But, these two varieties have now been lodged in the fields and dashed the hopes of the farmers.
Joint director Venkateswara Rao said that any variety of paddy can't be resistant if the wind speed is 50 to 60kmph. Now, worse, the wind speed was more than 90kmph, which proved deadly.
West Godavari joint director of agriculture G Sunitha said that as the crop lay submerged, it may be spoilt within three days. The paddy in 1.19 lakh acres has been lodged in the fields and enumeration would start after the waters receded from the fields, she said.