Agriculture and aquaculture farmers, who suffered huge losses due to incessant rains in the recent past, are an anxious lot with the IMD predicting that heavy rains will occur again in the region in the next few days.
With the officials predicting the formation of another cyclone and possible rains in the first week of December, farmers are worried about salvaging their produce.
Many aqua and agriculture farmers suffered huge losses due to the incessant rains that occurred in the last few months. Crops in thousands of acres were inundated and fish and shrimp tanks were also damaged due to the rains.
Leaders of various political parties, who visited the damaged fields to assess crop loss, appealed to the government to procure the discoloured paddy and other damaged crops and provide financial aid to the ryots to recover from their losses.
Several paddy farmers were seen drying paddy on the main roads on West Godavari and Krishna districts. However, they were anxious regarding the heavy rainfall prediction in the coastal districts of the State.
“We invested ₹20,000 per acre. But the rains in October inundated the crops, and rainwater stagnated in the fields for a month. Again, we spent around ₹5,000 to pump out the rainwater and clear the damaged crop,” said a farmer Ch. Ramachandra Rao of Alapadu village.
“The crop was harvested by November 20. Suddenly, there was a change in the weather and heavy rainfall occurred in several parts of the State, damaging the produce,” said another farmer K. Nageswara Rao of Undi in West Godavari district.
In Narsapuram, Veeravasaram, Akiveedu, Kalidindi, Korukallu and other mandals, many aqua ponds were damaged due to the rains, said the farmers.
“Irrigation canals were overflowing and tanks brimmed to the full due to incessant rains and damaged the tank bunds in many villages. Rains caused huge losses to fish and shrimp farmers,” said an aqua farmer David Raju.
