Not just paddy, rain-fed crops too bore the brunt

TIRUCHY: Unseasonal rainfall in the Delta has severely hit crops in rain-fed regions also-where black gram, green gram, sesame and groundnuts are grown.

As water release from Mettur was stopped on October 10, 2023 owing to poor storage levels, the Delta farmers who had been depending on the river irrigation opted for cultivating the crops like groundnuts, blackgram and sesame from the Karthigai month, said farmers union leaders. Crops which are about to sprout had faced severe damage due to the sudden downpour and subsequent inundation, they said.

“On an average, 20,000 acres of these rain-fed crops have been damaged in each district of the Delta”, said Sami Natarajan, General Secretary, Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangam. He appealed to the respective district collectors to order an assessment of crops damage at the earliest and disburse proper compensation to the affected farmers.

At least Rs 15,000 should have been spent by each farmer per acre of cultivating these cash crops, the farmer leader said. Meanwhile, the farmers charged that the desilt works were not properly carried out in the interior parts of Delta. “There is a correlation between places where desilt works were poor and inundation. The water stagnated in the fields and could not drain as there were blocks created in desilt works”, said G Govindaraj, a farmer association representative from Sirkazhi. The region was one of the heavily damaged ones in Mayiladuthurai district as the average rainfall between January 7 and 9 was 19 cm in the area. The farmers said that the proper facility to store the rainwater, clog-free drains would help farmers to utilise water resources better.