NAGAPATTINAM: Even as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast heavy rainfall for Nagapattinam till Monday, the incessant rains that lashed the district over the past week has inundated samba and thaladi paddy cultivation on about 5,000 acres, estimate agriculture and farmers’ welfare department officials.
Farmers, however, say that the seasonal paddy cultivation on at least 30,000 acres has been left under rainwater and blame the situation on the unchecked growth of water hyacinth in canals draining surplus water from the fields.
While farmers say the rainwater has inundated fields in nearly all the taluks, S R Tamilselvan from the Tamil Nadu farmers’ protection association said, “Samba and thaladi paddy on over 30,000 acres are inundated by rainwater.
Nearly half of it is most likely to get spoilt in just a day or two.” “We had just completed kuruvai harvest and started direct sowing and transplantation of thaladi paddy. Having lost a significant quantity of kuruvai paddy due to rainwater inundation, we are now facing the same situation with samba and thaladi crops,” he added.
Meanwhile, Manivannan, president of the tail-end farmers’ association, said the 45-day-old samba and 25-day-old thaladi crops in Keelaiyur are inundated in rainwater. “The fields now look like floodplains. The thaladi paddy faces the risk of rotting. We fear that more rain will cause loss due to rotting. We couldn’t even distinguish the boundary of the fields and the canals because the water level is the same everywhere,” he added.
Even as he said that the crops can be saved only if the water drains soon, he complained that many irrigation and drain canals in Kilpidagai, Sadayankottagam, Keelayur, Thiruvasal Venmanacheri, Karapigagai and Easanur are ridden with water hyacinth. He urged the district administration to take action to drain the water and to provide seeds at a subsidy for farmers who need to sow again.
When enquired about the farmers’ complaints, an agriculture department official pointed out that crop damage assessment was yet to be carried out. The seasonal crops on about 5,000 acres, however, could’ve been inundated in the rains over the past week, the official said. “Damage assessment has not been done due to continuous rainfall.
We have instructed officials to conduct the assessment latest by this week,” the official added. It may be noted that early-stage samba paddy raised on about 22,000 hectares across the district came under rainwater following heavy rainfall during the last week of October, according to the figures provided by the agriculture minister during his visit to Nagapattinam on October 24.