The farmers are worried here that the rain of the past three days has damaged standing paddy crops over hundreds of acres of land that were about to be harvested in the district.
Earlier due to scarcity of water for irrigating the field, the Kharif paddy cultivation had been affected. But the woe had not stopped there. The crops came under the grip of insects soon after. If sources are to be believed, paddy crops in about 100 acres have been damaged in the district due to the current untimely rains. “Over the last three days, crops already reaped and stocked in yards for threshing and the standing crops in the field have been exposed to rain. As a result, there is a risk of their being damaged. The farmers are therefore worried,” stated District Krushak Sabha secretary Gayadhar Dhal, adding that the farmers were now in a panic situation as to how to repay the loans given the loss of crops.
“I harvested paddy crops over my two acres of land last week. But I failed to bring the paddy from the field. The rain has damaged all my crops,” said Krutibash Pradhan of Rajnagar. Sukadev Rout, a farmer of Saranga who raised paddy over three acres of land, also faces a similar tragedy. Though he harvested paddy before the rain, but they were damaged in the open yard where they were stored. According to Deputy Director (Agriculture) Praffula Chandra Mishra, the Kharif paddy cultivation was raised in 1.21 lakh hectares of land in the district this year. The Agriculture department had earlier alerted the farmers at panchayat level through public address system to harvest their paddy and store the produce safe before the rain sets in.
He informed that 95 per cent of Kharif paddy was harvested and the produce had been stored in the yard before the rain, adding that the district Agriculture department had started an assessment of the damage. Meanwhile, reports said the rain in last couple of days also severely damaged many vegetable farms across the coastal pockets. Most of the vegetable growers stated that due to the incessant rain, the vegetable crops suffered heavy damages. The rain also damaged green grams, black grams, and ground nuts across the district. The Deputy Director, however, assured that a report on crop damage would be sent to the State Government for appropriate compensation.