More than 7,600 acres of paddy that are ready for harvest were damaged in Vellore, Ranipet and Tiruvannamalai districts, due to unseasonal rain during the south-west monsoon since last week.
Officials of Department of Agriculture said that a crop enumeration process has been started to assess actual crop damage in these districts, which has been witnessing heavy downpour especially during night hours for the past few days. Paddy is the main crop that has been damaged extensively. “As per norms, crop damage to an extent of 33 percent and above for every one acre of cultivable land will be eligible for compensation. In Ranipet, over 70% of ready for harvest paddy were damaged,” K. Selvaraj, Joint Director (In-charge), Agriculture department (Ranipet), told The Hindu.
The unseasonal rain in August has put the farmers in a fix, with paddy on large tracts of land completely ruined. As per the agriculture department’s primary survey, it was found that 7,670 acres of land in these districts were inundated, with a majority from Tiruvannamalai district. “We have completely lost our savings that were invested in paddy cultivation. We are supposed to harvest in a few days before rain washed our crops,” said.
Among these districts, Tiruvannamalai has the largest area of 6,177 acres of paddy fields that are inundated due to recent rains, followed by Ranipet (1,200 acres) and Vellore (370 acres) as per initial estimates. Agricultural officials said that total cultivable lands are estimated at 39,000 hectares (Ranipet), 42,000 hectares (Tiruvannamalai) and 50,000 hectares (Vellore). Around two lakh small farmers, who cultivate less than five acres of land, in these districts are directly involved in farming.
Enumeration teams that include VAO and assistant agricultural officer were assessing crop damage in major paddy grown areas like Arakkonam, Thimiri, Kalavai in Ranipet; Vembakkam, Polur, Chetpet, Cheyyar and Arani in Tiruvannamalai and Katpadi and Anaicut in Vellore. This area has witnessed several crop damages due to recent rains. Assessment of crop damage is monitored by S. Kannan and G. Somu, joint directors for Tiruvannamalai and Vellore districts respectively.
As per tradition, farmers in the region cultivate at least three seasons in a year. Apart from Paddy, they also grow bananas, sugarcane, groundnuts, millets. Agricultural officials said that most of the affected farmers due to recent rains have started their cultivation late for the season as they were dependent on borewells that went dry during summer. Crops along Kosasthalaiyar river especially in Ranipet were unaffected as harvest has been completed for the season. “We have advised farmers to drain off the excess water and take preventive measures to prevent the crops from being damaged completely,” said S. Sundaram, deputy director (Agriculture), Tiruvannamalai.
