A plea was made by a farmer to Collector of Vellore R. Nanthagopal at the monthly agriculturists’ grievances redressal day meeting here on Friday, urging him to constitute a committee comprising officials of the revenue and agricultural departments and representatives of farmers to assess the drought situation in Vellore district and send a report to the state government seeking adequate drought relief for the affected farmers.
Udayakumar, a farmer, of Sarangal in Gudiyatham taluk said that Sarangal which once had abundant groundwater is totally dry today. The government has provided drought relief to all districts except Vellore.
The Collector should therefore constitute a committee to assess the drought situation and send a report to the government seeking adequate relief, he said.
Natarajan, a farmer of Pallikonda said that as against 35 per cent of the annual rainfall, which is usually received in the district during the north-east monsoon, only 18 per cent was received.
Meteorological experts should attend the agriculturists’ grievances redressal day meet held between April and December. They should forecast the weather conditions to help farmers take suitable decisions regarding cultivation.
Advice to farmers
The Collector said that the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (Farmers’ Science Centre) of Vellore district should provide suitable advice to the farmers about cultivation of crops based on weather forecast.
A professor of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) requested the farmers to visit the TNAU Centre in Virinjipuram and obtain necessary information. Weather details are available in the websites of TNAU and the Indian Meteorological Department, he said.
I rrigation equipments
Bhoopalan, a farmer of Ilayanallur said that drip irrigation equipments needed repairs whenever a farmer changed the crop as they suffered damage during irrigation. The agriculture department should undertake follow-up measures to enable farmers repair the damaged equipments, he added.
Ramakrishnan, Personal Assistant (Agriculture) to the Collector of Vellore said that the agriculture department would arrange for spares for replacing the damaged parts of the drip irrigation equipment.
A farmer of Arakkonam taluk said that sugarcane farmers in Arakkonam, Banavaram and Panapakkam were yet to be paid the arrears by the cooperative sugar mills to which they supplied sugarcane. He urged the Collector to take steps to expedite payment to the farmers.
When he found that the Special Officers of the Vellore Cooperative Sugar Mills, Ambur Cooperative Sugar Mills and Tirupattur Cooperative Sugar Mills were not present at the meeting but were represented by subordinate officials, the Collector asked the representatives to inform their Special Officers to attend the next meeting positively to answer questions related to registered sugarcane farmers.
G.S. Purushothaman, president, Organic Farming Association, Vellore urged the Collector to arrange for a training for the farmers in all the 20 blocks in the district in adopting organic farming in their fields in order to restore and improve soil fertility.
R. Jayasundar, Joint Director of Agriculture said that the department had formulated a plan for upgrading the soil.
