VIJAYAWADA: Even as the farmers in Krishna and Guntur districts were celebrating their good fortune, as the recent rains and floods in Krishna delta did much good than harm, those in Rayalaseema districts were cursing their luck as a prolonged dry spell made them lose hope on the groundnut crop they had cultivated.
Farmers of Krishna delta, particularly those with lands along the river course downstream of Prakasam Barrage, were happy as the floods, after a gap of 10 years, brought with them a fresh layer of fertile soil.
Rains and floods in Krishna delta in the second week of August inundated a couple of thousand hectares in Krishna district and 5,000 hectares in Guntur district. The loss was expected to be far less than feared. Only 30 per cent of crops in the inundated area in Krishna district was expected to have suffered damages as the enumeration process was still underway.
In Guntur, around 50 per cent of cotton crop grown in 4,654 hectares was suspected to have been harmed. The real extent of damages could only be known after the floodwater completely receded. “As the cotton crop is submerged for more than 5 days, we expect losses to be around 50-60 per cent. However, the extent of damage could only be assessed after the floodwater completely recedes,” Agriculture department Joint Director for Guntur district M Vijayabharathi said.
However, farmers were not that worried as the floods came during the initial stages of growing, pushing many to turn to paddy cultivation. In Guntur, the cropping area for paddy has increased to 2.3 lakh hectares from 1.96 hectares out of the total cultivable land of 5.34 lakh hectares. Mostly, those farmers who grew red gram, cotton and chillies, have turned to Paddy.
Farmers downstream of Prakasam barrage in river islets lost banana, turmeric and yam crops. However, they told the agriculture officials, who had gone to enumerate crop losses, that they were happy since the floods brought a layer of fertile soil. Now, they were looking forward to cultivating short-term crops, particularly black gram and maize, to some extent. “On their request, we have put an indent for black gram seed for 3,800 hectares,” Vijayabharati said.
In Krishna district, the cropping area of paddy, which was being grown in 2,28,745 hectares out of a total 3,16,770 hectares of cultivable land, was expected to increase.
Meanwhile, farmers in Anantapur district were under duress, with the groundnut crop they sowed to recoup losses that had accumulated over the last few years, once again failed to yield results due to prolonged dry spells in June and July.
Now, with the recent spell of rains, their hopes renewed as they were gearing up to grow alternate crops. They preferred horse gram, a short duration crop. “We have already started distributing contingency seed at 100 per cent subsidy and, by month-end, we expect to distribute them to 1.7 lakh farmers,” Habib Basha, Agriculture Joint Director for Anantapur, said.
According to statistics, as on date, 30,929 quintals of contingency seed have been positioned in Anantapur and 18,727 quintals have been distributed to 82,825 farmers.
Upset over mounting debts, farmer ends life
Ongole: A farmer committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree near his residence in Medarametla town in Korisapadu mandal on Monday. According to Medarametla police, the victim, Saamineni Sivanandam (66), owned 2.5 acre of agriculture land and took another 5 acre on lease at `10 lakh for cultivating crops.
For the past four years, due to droughts, he could not get minimum support price (MSP) for his produce and thus faced severe financial crunch. Lack of money coupled with mounting debts, prompted him to end his life by committing suicide. On Monday morning, Sivanandam’s wife found his body. The police sent the body to Addanki area hospital for postmortem.