The agriculture production of Nalgonda district is set to go down by a great extent this year owing to poor rainfall throughout the area.
According to statistics of the Agriculture Department, the farmers in district cultivated paddy in 1.44 lakh hectares during rabi this year compared to previous year which was 2.10 lakh hectares.
The paddy cultivation also declined during kharif since just 1.77 lakh hectares was cultivated against the last kharif which was 1.92 lakh hectares.
The total area under cultivation in 2013-14 was 6.02 lakh hectares, but the area during 2014-15 kharif declined to 5.21 lakh hectares and the area during the rabi also came down from last year’s 2.24 lakh hectares to 1.63 lakh hectares.
Particularly, the paddy cultivation came down considerably in both rabi and kharif this year.
The State government discouraged the cultivation of paddy under canals due to lack of water in major reservoirs during rabi, however, there was no increase in cultivation of alternative crops either. Meanwhile, the area under cotton cultivation also came down to 3 lakh hectares, which was 3.35 hectares last year.
The productivity of cotton went down by a great extent since the district registered poor rainfall throughout the year. Many farmers did not even have half of the yield compared to what they used to get.
Against the average rainfall of 752 mm, the district received only 411 mm rainfall with a deficit of 42 per cent.
Sensing this very early, the district administration sent a report to State government last October requesting them to declare all the 59 mandals as drought-hit, but to no avail.
Speaking to The Hindu , a farmer from Chityal, which received 73 per cent deficit rainfall during the year, P. Narayana asked the State compensation for crop loss, supply of fodder to feed the cattle throughout the summer and subsidy on seed and fertilizer to start next kharif operations.
