Farmers from the Kanniwadi block here complained about wild boar and elephant menace, which had destroyed coconut and other crops here on Thursday.
At the monthly grievance meeting that was held over video conferencing and presided over by District Collector M Vijayalakshmi, the farmers said that neither tangible action had been taken by forest officials, nor had the government had given them compensation. They pleaded with the Collector to intervene immediately.
During the meeting, the farmers spoke at length about the conflict between man and animal in the district. They said that they lived in constant fear. While the officials took some measures to chase away animals into the forest, the destruction, over the years, had ended in huge loss, they claimed.
The Kudaganaru issue was slowly turning into a major law and order problem, the farmers said and urged the district administration to intervene and order release of water. Over 10,000 acres of land in the belt would benefit from the release of water from Kamarajar dam, they said.
Intervening, the Collector assured to look into the water release issue for the farmers. She also promised to take steps to find places for drying the corn crops recently harvested in the district as many of the farmers had been using road space for drying purposes.
The milk procurement prices should be enhanced at least from the new year as the farmers claimed that the overheads had gone up and that they ended up in loss after supplying the produce to the milk producers union.
Though the government had desilted many tanks over the last four years, the farmers said that many tanks and ooranis required desilting under the kudimaramathu scheme.
Joint Director (Agriculture) Pandithurai, PA (Agriculture) to Collector Ravi Bharathi among other officials participated.
