The year 2016, in which Madurai district witnessed the second lowest rainfall district in the past 15 years, has come to an end leaving the farmers in a precarious situation with one farmer in the district already committing suicide reportedly due to distress.
As per the yearly data, the rainfall in 2016 was 556.24 mm, which is just around 60 per cent of normal rainfall. The crop cultivation area of the district for the year also reveals the graveness of the situation. “Just look at the paddy coverage. Our paddy area is roughly about 52,000 hectares. In 2016, the cultivation was only around 7,000 hectares, of which only around 5,500 hectares is expected to get a reasonably good yield,” said S. Kanagaraj, Joint Director of Agriculture, Madurai.
V.R. Muthu Peyandi, district committee member of Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangam, said that even those who sowed paddy relying on well irrigation were on the verge of witnessing a crop failure.
“Since there was no rainfall, the groundwater is also not getting replenished. The water level in wells is going down by a feet every day. A farmer who sowed four acres is now trying to protect at least one acre of crop,” he said, adding that many of the farmers he interacted with were under psychological stress.
N. Palanichamy, President of Tamil Nadu Sugarcane Farmers’ Association, said that even those who switched to millets, pulses and other crops hoping for a reasonable rainfall towards the end of the year were looking at an almost complete crop failure now.
Though a considerable number of farmers had insured their crops under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), officials acknowledge that it was going to be tough to claim compensation due to stringent criteria. “Though the scheme has some benefits over the previous scheme, the criteria for claims and verification process had been made little stringent and unrealistic,” said an official.
“For instance, for all the paddy farmers in a firka to be compensated for ‘prevented sowing,’ which means the farmers were not even able to sow due to climatic conditions, the scheme says that 75 per cent of the area should not be sowed, which is unrealistic,” he said.
Many of the farmers’ organisations have already stepped up their demand for declaring the district drought-hit. However, officials were unsure since the district may not technically fall under the required criteria. An official from the Agriculture Department said that one of the criteria was that rainfall shortage should be 75 per cent.
Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao said that the situation was being thoroughly studied and a report would be accordingly sent to the State government.
