Farmers in the district here are a worried lot as the Agriculture department is yet to provide sufficient paddy seed to them for the ongoing Kharif operation. The Governmental seed supply centres in all the nine blocks of the district have not stocked sufficient paddy seed, alleged many farmers.
However, District Agriculture Officer (DAO) is not ready to buy the story. “Farmers of the district have planned to raise paddy over 1,23,000 hectares for which they need about 75,000 quintals of paddy seed. The Agriculture Department will supply 10 to 15 per cent of the required paddy seed from the Odisha Seed Corporation (OSC) to the farmers,” informed the DAO.
“All the farmers do not need seed from the Agriculture Department. This year we have decided to provide paddy seed to around ten to fifteen per cent of farmers for which we sought 8,870 quintals of seed from the OSC. We have already provided 1,811 quintals of paddy seeds to the farmers in all the nine blocks of the district. We stocked 5,845 quintals of paddy seed in our store houses. We will get more stocks from OSC. Besides, we have decided to sell paddy seed through 36 cooperative societies and 26 seed supplying centers in the district,” the DAO added.
However, the ground situation looks different. In many paddy seed sale centres in the block offices, farmers clashed with one another to get paddy seed due to non-availability of sufficient paddy seed. Criticising the apathy of the Government, Krusaka Sabha secretary Gayadhar Jena said, “Farmers have been running from pillar to post to get seed to raise paddy saplings. The authorities have broken their backbone by making them return empty handed.”
The farmers of the district have been facing one or the other natural disaster each year like flood, cyclone or drought. It is also alleged that many venal agricultural and block officials of the district are minting money by not providing subsidised seed to the farmers. On the other hand, the officials are illegally selling the seed to private seed traders forcing the farmers to purchase seed from the seed merchants, alleged Madhaba Das, a farmer of Balichandrapur village.
The cost of the seed is soaring in the open market due to unholy nexus with seed traders and Agriculture officials. The official rate of the paddy seed per quintal is Rs 1,500 for Swarna variety whereas the cost of other varieties of paddy seeds is Rs 1, 350. But the farmers are purchasing paddy seeds in the open market at Rs 1,700, said, a farmer Bhikari Mohanty.