Double whammy for Kalahandi farmers

Expressbuzz, 28th July, 2009

BHAWANIPATNA: It’s double whammy for the farming community of Kalahandi district.
Though delayed, the monsoon joy was short-lived for the kharif farmers as heavy rains played spoilsport. On the other hand, many who are into pulses cultivation are struggling with the supply of expired rhizome packets.
The district has been facing heavy rains since yesterday and this has yet again affected the paddy saplings.
Sowing of paddy seeds and de-weeding of agricultural fields had been delayed due to the late arrival of monsoon.
Though the paddy saplings sprouted in June and July, due to torrential rains in the last two weeks these saplings, especially in the riverside areas, have been damaged.
In the current kharif season, it had been targeted to cover 3,55,280 hectares under various crops, including paddy on 1,55,600 hectares. Farmers also cultivated cotton on 23,000 hectares this season.
But the cotton seeds that were sown in the first week of July have been damaged in the rains.
Deputy Director of Agriculture Prabasi Sethi said about 10 per cent of the cotton cultivated in this kharif season has been affected and some cotton farmlands will require gap filling or re-sowing.
Cotton sown before June has not been damaged. Sethi said that the administration is taking steps to facilitate community nurseries for farmers whose paddy crops have been damaged.
Pulses cultivation
A part from paddy and cotton, the district unit of the agriculture department had decided to cover 1,06,950 hectares of land under different pulses, including ‘biri’ and ‘mung’.
To boost production of ‘mung’ and ‘biri’, the agriculture department is selling micro nutrients, rhizomes and seeds on subsidy.
The rhizomes from Bangalore are being sold at Rs 10 per packet as against the market price of Rs 90. However, a few days back some of these packets were found to have expired. The shelf life of these packets is six months.
A lthough the packets have been made ready in November 2008, they were being supplied to the farmers now.
Sethi said the officials concerned have been asked to provide fresh stock of rhizomes.