Almost four months have passed since S. Pandian of Thenur near Chettikulam migrated from his village in search of green pastures for a flock of about 150 goats and sheep. He had initially managed to find a few patches of green in 10 km radius from his village. But, the pastures hardly lasted for four to five days. Looking for better grazing grounds for his goats and sheep, he then moved to Mannachanallur with his goats. Now, he is camping at Valadi near Lalgudi to feed his goats.
He is not the only goat rearer, who has migrated to far away places in search of grazing fields and water to feed goats and sheep. About 10 goat rearers from Thenur have been camping at Valadi with the hope of finding grazing fields.
“I have not come across such extreme drought conditions during the last 20 years. We walk along with our herds for at least 10 km daily to feed them. It has become an uphill task to find grazing fields. The fields, which are well connected with good irrigation system, also look like a desert,” said Mr. Pandian.
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Though they manage to feed their cattle to an extent, they find it extremely difficult to find water in ponds and lakes.
Similar is the situation in open wells too. Not a single tank or lake has water in the district.
All of them have dried up completely due to failure of Southwest and Northeast monsoon in 2016. The dry weather that began in March continues till now.
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“There is not even a drop of water in lakes and ponds. We have to work overtime to feed water to goats. Water is available on a few farm ponds owned by progressive farmers. Some of them demand money for providing water to goats,” another goat rearer said.
He said that a large number of cattle rearers from Ramanathapuram district had also migrated to Lalgudi and neighbouring areas with hundreds of goats because of arid and dry condition prevailing in their native villages.
Since the grazing fields in Lalgudi area too had gone dry, they were slowly moving to places in Ariyalur district.