Drought looming over Raichur for fourth consecutive year

“ It is really a hard time as we are now facing drought for the fourth consecutive year. Standing crops, such as chilli, cotton and red-gram that I cultivated in five, two and three acres respectively, are slowing drying up. I have already spent around Rs. 1.25 lakh that I had borrowed from traders at APMC,” lamented Huligeppa Gajjinamane, a farmer from Jalibenchi village in Raichur taluk.

Not able to repay previous three years’ loans after suffering crop loss due to drought, his outstanding has increased to Rs. 7.25 lakh. When the Department of Meteorology forecast above-normal rainfall before the onset of monsoon, he rejoiced and hoped to clear all his loans. However, the continued dry spell shattered all his hopes.

Huligeppa represents lakhs of farmers cultivating lands in rain-fed areas and tail-end parts of Tungabhadra Left Bank Canal (TLBC). The disturbing scenes of young plants of red-gram, green-gram, cotton, chilli, pearl millet (bajra), paddy, groundnut and others turning yellow due to heat can be seen across the rural areas in the district, except parts of Sindhanur taluk where paddy fields have received relatively better quantity water from TLBC.

The district received above-normal rainfall in the months of June and July, triggering hopes among farmers. However, the negligible rainfall of just 27 mm against the normal rainfall of 102 mm in August (73% deficit) dashed their hopes and dreams.

Switching crops

Hit hard by the pink-bollworm pest that devastated Bt cotton crop in the last kharif season, farmers have switched to red-gram this year. As a result, the red-gram cultivation has increased from 40,000 hectares last year to over 85,000 hectares this year. The cotton cultivation area has shrunk from 60,000 hectares to 30,000 hectares. The area of bajra cultivation has also seen an increase from 35,000 hectares to 47,000 hectares. However, the change in crop pattern has helped little as the weakened monsoon invariably hit all.

Of the 1,35,000 hectares of paddy fields along the TLBC, only half have seen transplantation. Many of the paddy growers in Sindhanur taluk whose fields received better quantity water could complete paddy transplantation. However, most of the farmers in Manvi and Raichur taluks that fall at the tail-end of TLBC are still waiting for water to take up transplantation. The paddy crop that was sown using traditional seed drilling method that requires less water as compared to transplanting method is also drying up due to heat stress.