Faced with the devastating drought, farmers in the Cauvery delta region of Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam districts are mulling alternatives to their staple paddy crop.
The flow down the Cauvery has dwindled and is uncertain. The Mettur dam is dry and there is no possibility of a kuruvai crop this year. In certain areas of the old ayacut, overexploitation of groundwater for irrigating summer paddy has depleted sub-surface water resources and is threatening to snowball into a drinking water crisis.
Rampant sand mining has eaten away moisture retention capacity and the aquifer nature of the river systems and water bodies making life more difficult for farmers. “All those factors have conspired to push the delta farmers into thinking of alternative crop to paddy,” points out a farmer S. Durairaj of Erukkattur in Tiruvarur district. “Paddy is a lazy man’s crop and that is one reason many farmers prefer cultivating the crop in the delta,” says Mannargudi S. Ranganathan, general secretary, Tamil Nadu Cauvery Delta Farmers Welfare Association. However, the changing conditions have been playing on the minds of the delta farmers of late and there has been a marked drop in paddy crop coverage. Crops such as cotton and pulses are gaining the ground lost by paddy and that is good, he says.
Pulses are good even if their yield drops, Mr. Ranganathan notes, adding that if they get a good price they pay the farmers handsomely, and if they fail to bring in the desired returns they still act as good green manure for the subsequent crop such as paddy. Either way, soil enrichment takes place, he said.
As for the summer paddy season 2017, against the previous year’s 18,000 hectares in Tiruvarur district, only 6,000 came under paddy crop, while the rest, 12,000 hectares, were covered mostly by pulses and cotton and in some areas groundnut crop was preferred.
Officials expect that in the current kuruvai season in Tiruvarur district, pulses could cover up to 16,000 hectares, while kuruvai coverage of 33,000 hectares was wholly under paddy last year.
Need to sensitise farmers
The Agriculture department, along with the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and the Krishi Vigyan Kendras, must sensitise farmers on the need to go for alternative crops to paddy. It must explain the benefits of shifting and could co-opt the services of contact farmers who have been lying dormant for long, says Arupathy P. Kalyanam, general secretary of the Federation of Farmers Associations of Delta Districts.
