KOPPAL: Four North Karnataka districts – Koppal, Raichur, Vijayanagar and Ballari – are witnessing large-scale migration of farm and rice mill workers, reportedly because of a looming water crisis and fear of a bacterial disease threatening paddy crop in the region.
These districts have nearly 300 rice mills with thousands of workers. Thousands of farm workers in this region also grow paddy on leased fields. A looming water shortage in Tungabhadra river and fear of Dundanu (bacterial leaf blight) disease damaging crops are forcing these people to migrate to states such as Maharashtra, Goa and Telangana this year, sources said.
Even as the government would compensate the owners of the paddy fields, the workers who have leased the farms fear losses if the situation turned worse, they said.
Agricultural scientists in Koppal said about 1,00,000 hectares of land in the district has lost soil quality because of excess fertiliser use – another reason for the migration of paddy farmers.
It was decided at an Irrigation Advisory Committee meeting, also attended by Koppal farmer leaders, that the safeguarding of the dam structure was important, and water could not be supplied for the second crop. While paddy growers welcomed the decision, it has also led to thousands of people moving to metros and other big cities to search for jobs.
Parashu Madinur, a rice mill worker at Gangavathi, said, “A water shortage will lead to crop shortage and land the rice mills in a crisis. Fearing this, rice mill workers, as well as the paddy growers who took the fields on contracts, are migrating to other places. Roundworm disease is also spreading fear among farmers.”
