The steady drizzle in the delta region since Friday evening and the possibility of more rain over the next week have instilled a sense of insecurity among samba paddy cultivators planning to harvest their crop in the coming days.
Sirkali recorded 113 mm of rainfall in the 24 hours ending at 8.30 a.m. on Saturday to top the wet chart in the delta region followed by Manalmedu which registered 80 mm during the period.
While directly sown samba paddy crop on around six lakh acres in Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam districts has been given up as lost, ‘thalady’ raised on three lakh acres with the help of pump set irrigation is under threat by the current spell of rain.
Sections of farmers rue that productivity could take a further hit over and above the damage inflicted by the drought conditions while many ryots fear that any more rain at this stage might flatten the fully matured paddy crop which would cause the fresh sprouting of the grains when they lie in moist conditions on the earth for a couple of days.
Late arrival
“We were praying for rain when we needed it the most but now, it’s a little too late. Rain at this stage is affecting the harvest of the samba paddy crop in Kumbakonam, Tiruvidaimarudur and Papanasam regions. Most of us have gone in for the BPT 5204 variety and that is fetching us ₹1,300 a bag of 62 kg when sold to the private dealers. However, if the rain goes on, then the private dealers might quote lower prices, citing higher moisture content, says Swamimalai R. Vimalnathan, secretary, Cauvery Farmers Protection Association.
In many areas, farmers who had harvested their produce on Thursday and Friday held them back without selling to private dealers. The yield in the fields harvested so far in the Mayiladuthurai-Sirkali region is significantly low.
With farmers trying to salvage something out of the available crop, the rain has come at the wrong moment.
Machine harvesting is a difficult task in wet conditions and consumes almost 50 per cent additional cost, says Arupathy P. Kalyanam, general secretary, Federation of Farmers' Association of Cauvery Delta.
In normal conditions, a combine harvester will take nearly an hour to harvest one acre but when the field is wet and the paddy crop is flattened by the rain, then it might take almost one and a half hours. The problem is all the more acute for those crops that would be ready for harvest in the next 10 days as the dry paddy crop stems would break when bent by the downpour to the ground.
If rain continued over the next days, there was the possibility of the paddy grains that are floored sprouting, adding to the harvest woes of hapless farmers in the delta region where the directly sown fields have given up for lost. The rainfall (in mm) recorded in major centres in the 24 hours ending at 8.30 a.m. on Saturday are as follows: Pattukkottai 50, Madukkoor 34.8, Neivasal Thenpathy 32.60, Vettikkadu 27.4, Adirampattinam 19.9Kumbakonam 19, Lower Anicut 16, Tiruvidaimarudur 15, (all in Thanjavur district); Kodavasal 74.4, Nannilam 52.2, Nidamangalam 24, Mannargudi 17, (all in Tiruvarur district); Sirkali 113, Manalmedu 80, Thirupoondi 72.4, Anaikaranchathiram (Koolidam) 61, Talaignayar 54.8, Nagapattinam 40.8,(all in Nagapattinam district).
