Even after heavy rains and floods lashing out East Godavari district, officials of the Agriculture Department are confident that the district would produce 14.18 lakh tonnes of paddy in the current kharif season with the transplantation completing in 2.29 lakh hectares.
There has been a slight increase in the extent as compared to the registered 2.25 lakh hectares in the last kharif season.
Early monsoon coupled with favourable rainfall in most parts of the district has made the officials optimistic on the yield.
As per the records, the paddy yield from the kharif-2017 and rabi-2018 was 12.84 lakh metric tonnes and 13.06 lakh metric tonnes, respectively, in the district and the heavy rains coupled with floods in the Godavari made the paddy farmers worried lot in the beginning of the current kharif season.
“Standing crop got submerged in the floods in 6,700 hectares, and the impact of which is about 2% to 3% of the overall production,” says K.S.V. Prasad, Joint Director of Agriculture.
Standing crop of paddy in parts of Konaseema region got damaged owing to floods, whereas the same in parts of Kajuluru and surrounding villages was damaged owing to the defunct tidal lock at Yanam resulting in submergence of paddy fields by the seawater during the floods.
Natural farming
The farmers, however, were advised to go for short term crop. “In the wake of complaints from the farmers about the spiralling input costs, we are promoting zero-based natural farming, which has been yielding positive results. In the current season, 20,650 farmers from different parts of the district opted for this method in an extent of 2,667 hectares,” he explains.
Admitting that the crop loss due to the floods was nominal, farmers representatives are complaining of non-availability of finance and adequate quantities of fertilizer in the market.
“Horticulture farmers are the worst hit and even the paddy farmers who lost their crop too need government support to resume farming. It is unfortunate that the survey to assess damage is yet to begin,” points out Kovvuri Trinadha Reddy, a progressive farmer from Anaparthi.