Even as heavy rain is lashing across the State, a small village on the north-eastern corner of Idukki is waiting for the skies to open up. Marayur, 42 km from the hill station of Munnar, is known for the vast stretches of sugar cane fields. As one travels from Marayur to Kanthallur, the cool season vegetable cultivating village, farmers can be seen irrigating their vegetable farms.
Marayur is on the eastern side of the Western Ghats. A rain-shadow area, it gets more rainfall during the northeast monsoon than the southwest monsoon. However, the last northeast monsoon was weak and the southwest monsoon has not yet reached here.
Jithesh, a local journalist at Marayur, told The Hindu on Monday that since the beginning of the southwest monsoon in June, only once it drizzled in Marayur.
The situation in the other cool season vegetable cultivating village of Vattavada is not much different.
In Vattavada, some of the vegetable farms dried up due to lack of irrigation.
Mr. Jithesh said that climate change was very visible in the region in the past two rainy seasons. Since the start of June, the sky remained cloudy, but it never rained.
He said the groundwater level had fallen and the wells dried up, though there was no acute shortage of drinking water.
Marayur is surrounded on all sides by green mountains and the streams originating from the forests provide water. The farms in the area are also irrigated with water from the streams.
Only mist and fog
Vijayan, a farmer at Puthoor, near Kanthallur, said that only mist and fog was seen in the region these days. Though the southwest monsoon strengthened in the State, the region had not received any showers. He said it was unusual. Without irrigation, the vegetable farms would get dried up.
