A truant monsoon has resulted in hopes of farmers fading. The livelihoods of farmers in Thoothukudi has been affected as the district did not experience the normal rainfall this season. Most of the standing crops in rainfed tracts are on the verge of withering.
If it did not rain in the next seven or ten days, almost all crops would wither away, K. Perumal, district secretary, Tamil Nadu Farmers’ Association, told The Hindu here on Monday.
Anticipating monsoon rains, crops such as black gram, green gram, chillies, onion and maize were sown in parts of Ottapidaram, Kayathar, Kovilpatti, Ettayapuram, Vilathikulam and surrounding areas. But maize crop has not been affected severely due to shortfall in rainfall.
Paddy farmers are bearing the brunt of a truant monsoon.
Cultivation area reduced
Crops are raised over 46,000 acres of rainfed area during normal monsoon. Unfortunately, deficient rainfall has forced farmers to considerably reduce the cultivation area to 3,000 acres that too with the aid of water pumps this year.
Only some farmers have raised paddy nursery beds in Srivaikuntam, Tiruchendur and Alwarthirunagari.
Banana farmers have also lost their hopes as the crop requires good amount of water.
While the district administration has been taking efforts to include banana and onion crops in the insurance scheme to benefit farmers, the possibility seems remote, according to farmers.
Even the much awaited insurance benefits due to farmers in 2015-16 are yet to be received.
Hence, he appealed to the district administration to recommend to the State government to declare Thoothukudi district ‘drought hit’ to receive relief from the Centre and save the lives of farmers.
P. Vanniarajan, Joint Director of Agriculture, said that the area under cultivation ised to be at 1.4 lakh hectares when the normal northeast monsoon rainfall was at 429 mm. But, so far, only 147.89 mm rains had been received.
The annual average rainfall for the district is 662 mm, but only 209.38 mm had been recorded this year.
Around 18, 000 farmers had insured their crops so far and other farmers could insure their crops till January 15.
