KENDRAPARA: The recent rain has provided favourable conditions to start agricultural activities but many landowners of the district are in a fix due to shortage of enough farm hands.Though the weather is conducive for taking up plantation of paddy saplings, farmers are desperately in search of workers to assist them in agriculture operations. The reason behind the crisis, farmers said, is resumption of works under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and the State government’s Rs 1 per kg rice scheme.
Sources said the farm workers are content with the earnings from the 100-day work under the rural job scheme rather than toil in the fields. The cheap rice scheme has also reduced the size of agriculture work force.Prakash Behera (60), a retired government employee of Srirampur village is the owner of five acre of land. Since the last one week, he has been running from pillar to post to get at least 10 workers to plant paddy saplings on his field but to no avail. “These days, workers get rice at a cheap rate from the government while many earn money by doing little work under MGNREGS. This has led to acute shortage of farm hands in the region. I find myself in deep trouble as I am yet to start farming activities in absence of workers,” he said.
Echoing similar concerns, Ashok Rout of Gopinathpur village said nowadays, a farm worker demands Rs 400 as daily wage apart from food during the cultivation season. “With much difficulty, I managed to find five workers for farming work recently and I had to pay them according to their demand,” he said.Like Prakash and Ashok, many landowners complained that they are in a difficult situation due to non-availability of farm hands.Contacted, district agriculture officer Prafulla Moharana said modernisation in farm sector is the need of the hour. “We are supplying modern equipment and machines for farm work with subsidies to farmers. They should purchase the equipment to solve the worker shortage problem,” he added.