ROURKELA: With a preliminary survey suggesting damage to paddy crops over nearly 30,000 hectares of land across Sundargarh, all eyes are now on Agriculture Department’s ongoing crop-cutting experiment (CCE).
Sources in the department said the CCE has been initiated under PM Fasal Bima Yojana by the District Planning and Monitoring Unit (DPMU) with the assistance of agriculture and revenue authorities. Sample crop cutting is being done in the presence of the representatives of the SBI General Insurance as part of the experiment.
Chief District Agriculture Officer (CDAO) Harihar Nayak said CCE is a widely used technique to estimate yield of paddy crop in which a plot of certain size is randomly selected. He said 16 crop cuttings would be conducted in each of the total 17 blocks of the district. A minimum of four plots would be covered in any of the randomly selected gram panchayats. He said the CCE initiated around 10 days back would continue till December 31 to help ascertain the actual crop yield scenario. He said around 40 per cent of sample crop cutting has already been completed.
In the 2024 kharif season, a total of 1,94,700 hectare area was covered under paddy cultivation, while the remaining 1,18,300 hectare was taken up for non-paddy crops. Farmers from different blocks had recently alleged damage to their standing paddy crops due to moisture stress condition. The district administration had conducted a preliminary survey and the reports were submitted before being forwarded to the government. On November 15, a group of farmers had met Sundargarh collector Manoj S Mahajan and demanded him to declare the district as drought-hit.
Sources said due to the delayed arrival of monsoon and deficit rainfall in June and July, paddy farming activities were delayed. In August the majority of blocks had received surplus rainfall, but the distribution was highly erratic. Affected farmers claimed paddy plants mostly in panicle initiation to fruiting stages were damaged in absence of life-saving soil moisture due to inadequate or no rainfall in September and October.
Meanwhile, despite erratic rainfall and irregular distribution pattern, actual rainfall received at the gram panchayat level could not be precisely measured as the rainfall gauges are installed at the respective block headquarters. Agriculture authorities said the government has sought report for finalisation of installation of rainfall gauges in 279 gram panchayats of the district.