Many of the farmers who had lost their crops in drought following failure of north east monsoon and farm workers who were rendered jobless in the district have migrated to other districts and neighbouring ‘towns’ seeking jobs.
Interaction with a cross-section of farmers in Kadugusanthai, Keelaselvanoor, Melakidaram and Panaiadiyendal villages revealed that youngsters have moved to Tirupur and Coimbatore to seek jobs in the knitwear textile companies, while women and elders have moved to Thoothukudi and nearby towns for jobs.
The migration has taken place in large numbers in Kadaladi, Mudukulathur and Kamudhi blocks, the farmers said. “We depend totally on agriculture and this year we are facing the worst situation,” the farmers said.
A large number of women in Kadaladi block, who had exhausted their quota of 100 days employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREG) scheme, were going for work in saltpans in the neighbouring Thoothukudi.
Salt companies arranged transport facilities and they earned about Rs. 200 a day, they said.
A section of men go for cutting karuvelam trees (prosopis juliflora) for ‘kari moottam’ (charcoal making), while others visit Erwadi, Kilakarai and Rameswaram for loading fishing gears into the vessels and unloading the catches, they said.
Farmers in Kadaladi block cultivated paddy in 17,137 hectares and millets in 1,229.52 hecatares and the loss was total, officials also said.
Whenever the farmers lost the paddy crop, they bet on chilli and groundnut crops to make good their loss. But this year, they burnt their fingers as the monsoon let them down badly. “For the first time in 40 years we lost the groundnut crop in Kadaladi block,” said S. Chelladurai, a farmer in Kadugusanthai. Every year, a couple of brief spells would be enough to save the crops but this year, it was a total failure, he said.
Farmers have spent about Rs. 17,000 per acre for cultivating sorghum and Rs. 15,000 for groundnut. Most of them had borrowed money from private money lenders at three paise interest and they look to the government to come out from the debt burden, they said.
