Poor monsoon to cost farmers dear

Paddy, pepper, coffee farmers in Wayanad face poor harvest

Pepper spikes emerging from vines at a farm in Wayanad. Scanty monsoon rain will affect the yield of the crop next year.

Scanty rainfall during the current southweat monsoon has dashed the hopes of farmers in Wayanad, a major coffee, pepper, rice, and ginger-growing region in the State.

The farmers were jubilant when rain fell in copious volumes in the first week of May and continued till the end of the month. But the situation suddenly changed in the district by the first week of June, with the advent of monsoon.

The district received only 59.6 mm of rainfall till June 20 against the normal of 500 mm in June, according to the Regional Agriculture Research Station (RARS) of Kerala Agricultural University, Ambalavayal. It was 99.2 mm during the corresponding period last year.

S. Rajendran, associate director of research, RARS, told

The Hindu that the dearth of rainfall in June had adversely affected thousands of farmers who were preparing for the nanja (first crop) cultivation.

Flowering and pollination in pepper vines usually take place during the southwest monsoon, but in most parts of the district flowering was less owing to the scanty rain, sources said. In areas which received better summer rain, the spikes came out from pepper vines, but they fell in the prolonged dry spell, sources said. Sources in the coffee industry said coffee production would decline by 10 to 20% owing to the scanty monsoon rain.