Patiala: Tomato farmers allege crop damage due to poor weather; officials unaware

PATIALA: A number of tomato farmers in the villages of Sanaur division in Patiala district of Punjab claimed that their crop has been damaged due to poor weather conditions and fog thus leading to attack of ‘blight’ decease on the crop. However, the horticulture department and agriculture department claimed they were unaware of any such reports of crop destruction in the district so far.
The farmers alleged that the poor weather conditions had led to crop damage in villages including Asarpur, Jogipur, Kartarpur, Nurkhedi, Budhanpur, and Basar village. They demanded the agriculture officials should make visit and assess the losses and the state government should provide them compensation. In Sanaur division, the tomato crop is sown in around around 500 acres.
Gurvinder Singh, farmer in Asarpur village, around 10 km away from Patiala, said, “In our village, the tomato crop has been sown in around 100 acres and in around fifty acres the crop is completely damaged. The crop takes four months period to be harvested. We had conducted spray of pesticides on the crop to save it from any decease but the weather had damaged our crop.”
Farmer Surinder Singh said that he had sown his crop in more than four acres but the same was damaged following an attack of ‘blight’ decease. Around one lakh per acre is an expenditure incurred on the crop by the farmers.
Sanaur MLA HS Chandumajra visited some of these villages and demanded Girdawari for the losses farmers had faced. He said that the state government had already ignored the diversification and the tomato crop, a vegetable, was under diversification. He added that the government should pay attention immediately as the farmers here had sown tomato in hundreds of acres in this belt and compensation to the farmers be provided as soon possible.
Patiala chief agriculture officer Arvinder Singh said that matter is to be dealt by the horticulture department and agriculture department can look into the matter only if any farmer reach us with a complaint.
Deputy director horticulture Patiala, Swaran Singh Mann said, “None of the farmers have visited or informed us about this and we are completely unaware about any attack or damage on the crop. We will send the officials soon to look into the matter.”