Samba paddy cultivation has gathered momentum in the canal-irrigated areas in district.
Samba paddy coverage is expected to exceed the normal area and cross 40,000 hectares (ha) in the delta areas of the district. “So far transplanting has been done on about 8,000 ha and there are nurseries to cover another 32,000 ha,” said K. Balraj, Joint Director of Agriculture, told The Hindu.
Normally, samba paddy is raised on about 60,000 ha in delta and non-delta areas of the district. Of this, about 35,000 ha will be in delta areas.
The Public Works Department, which drew much flak in recent days with complaints of meagre flow to tail-end areas of the irrigation canals, has now managed to meet the farmers’ demands. “We have now got water in the tail-end areas of the Kattalai High Level Canal. Farmers are just about to transplant nurseries here. Samba cultivation is going on in full swing in other parts of the canal irrigated areas in the district too,” said Puliyur A. Nagarajan, president, Farmers Wing of the Tamil Maanila Congress.
The Agriculture department is hoping to promote the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in at least 75% of the cultivated areas in the district this year.
The SRI system, is an effective technique to increase productivity with less water requirement, the department officials said.
Meanwhile, the recent widespread rainfall in the district is also likely to encourage farmers dependent on rain-fed tanks to take up paddy cultivation soon.
If the tanks get good inflow in the next few days, more farmers would be encouraged to raise paddy, Mr. Balraj said.
Currently, millets have been sown on 15,000 ha in the non-delta areas of the district against the normal area of coverage of about 34,000 ha, he added.
Director of Agriculture V.Dakshinamurthy, who visited Tiruchi, Thanjavur and Pudukottai districts last week, instructed the department officials to extend all assistance and technical support to farmers to increase area of cultivation and achieve better productivity this season, taking advantage of the favourable conditions.
Officials should pull out all the stops to achieve the foodgrain production target of 130 lakh tonnes for the State this year, he said.
During review meetings held in Thanjavur and Pudukottai, he also instructed the officials to ensure that farmers insured their crop under the Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance Scheme.