Tough times continue for farmers in Raichur. After facing four consecutive drought, it is the turn of floods to hit the farmers hard. Incessant rainfall that has been lashing the district for the last one month has shattered their hopes.
Despite dry spell during the monsoon this year, the farmers here cultivated cotton, chilli, red gram, pearl millet, sunflower, and other crops in the vast rainfed area hoping that their fields would receive rain.
After Water Resources Department decided not to release water from the Tungabhadra reservoir for the first crop — owing to poor storage in the dam due to deficient rainfall in the catchment area — the farmers in the Tungabhadra command area along the Tungabhadra Left Bank Canal that irrigates around 6 lakh acres in Raichur and Koppal districts too switched to lighter crops such as cotton and chilli that require relatively lesser water compared to paddy — the crop they normally cultivate on their irrigated lands.
Farmers of both the rainfed and irrigated belt were happy as their crops were showing positive signs. However, their happiness was short-lived, as incessant rainfall began destroying their standing crop.
Cotton cultivated on more than 2.30 lakh acres is the worst hit. The crop sown in the rainfed areas early in the monsoon is now ready for harvest. But, the farmers are unable to harvest it owing to the rain. The same crop, sown a little later in the irrigated belt, which was healthy, is now getting destroyed owing to the rain.
“I have cultivated Bt cotton on my 4.5 acres. The crop was so flourishing that each plant had more than 30 fully-grown and healthy bolls. Before they could split and fetch fluffy cotton, incessant rain started. Now, all the cotton bolls in my field are rotten. In some fields in my village, the seeds have germinated destroying the cotton around them,” Jayappaswamy from Udumgal-Khanapur village in Raichur taluk told The Hindu on Tuesday.
He added that he was worried about repaying ₹1.80 lakh loan that he has borrowed from a bank.
Similarly, pearl millet crop is also ready for harvest. However, farmers are unable to harvest it owing to continuous rainfall. In some areas that received heavy rain and saw gusty winds, the crop has fallen on to the ground and the seeds have began to germinate. Similar is the story with chilli crop. The farmers also say that their red gram crop, which was to enter its flowering stage in 15 days, is infested with disease triggered by continuous rainfall.
With kharif crop almost slipping out of their hands, the rain is not allowing the farmers to take up any activity for sowing jowar, groundnut, and other crops for the rabi season. “Fields need to be dry for cleaning and sowing. But, continuous rainfall keeps the fields completely wet triggering dense growth of weeds. No activity can be taken up,” Chamarasa Malipatil, honorary president of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, who hails from a village in Manvi taluk, Raichur district, said.
He further expressed discontentment over the government not taking up a crop loss survey in the district and making arrangements for disbursing compensation among the affected farmers.
“Farmers have not received compensation for the crop they lost in the last rabi. Nor have the crop insurance holders been paid the sum assured for crop loss. The government is yet to begin a survey to assess the extent of loss incurred in recent rain. It is disappointing,” he added.