With the year 2016 turning out to be one of the worst years for agriculture across the State, farmers were hoping that 2017 would at least be less disastrous.
However, the negligible area under ‘kuruvai’ cultivation, for the second consecutive year in Madurai owing to scanty rainfall has shown that 2017 has been equally bad if not worse than the previous year.
According to officials, while paddy cultivation targeted for kuruvai season this year is 4,562 hectares, the area under cultivation so far is only around five % - 257 hectares - significantly low compared to the roughly 1,000 hectares of land sown last year.
The situation is similar with other varieties of crops such as millets and pulses. For instance, while the targeted area coverage for pulses was 5,420 hectares this year, the area achieved so far is only 125 hectares. “Like this year, though Periyar waters could not be released in June-July for ‘kuruvai’ cultivation last year, a section of farmers, particularly in Vadipatti and Chellampatti blocks, went ahead with sowing, hoping on well irrigation or late rains. However, this time, many did not want to take that risk,” an agriculture official said.
M. Tirupathi, a farmer from Kulamangalam, pointed out that a large number of farmers, who were dependent on well irrigation, could not go ahead with ‘kuruvai’ cultivation this year since majority of their wells have run dry owing to the persisting drought that began last year.
Concurring with this, K. Dharmalingam, a 67-year-old farmer from Kachirayanpatti near Melur, said that though he and few other farmers tried to sink a well up to 500 feet, the exercise turned out to be futile.
Pointing out that his village was in the tail-end of the Periyar-Vaigai irrigation area, he said that it was seven years ago that Kachirayanpatti and nearby areas received water from the irrigation canal. “Even in those years when water was released from the dam, it failed to reach our areas,” he said.
“Farmers in our region have begun to think about giving up paddy cultivation altogether since the monsoons have become erratic and we are only incurring losses year after year,” he said.
Though the administration has also been appealing to farmers to switch over to alternative crops such as millets or pulses, farmers, however, claim that the transition was not easy.
P. Krishnan, a 65-year-old farmer from Kallampatti near Kottampatti, said that switching to other crops depended on the nature of soil as well. “Moreover, with increasing input costs, non-availability of labour, and uncertainty over monsoons, there is no guarantee that even switching over to alternative crops will be profitable,” he said.
