As crops fall flat, so do hopes: Heavy rain hits cotton and paddy farming in Punjab

Bathinda/Chandigarh: Untimely rain on since Friday night and a gloomy forecast till Sunday have drenched Punjab’s cotton and paddy farmers in fear. Their douts have been echoed by farm experts who have said incessant rain could damage the two kharif crops.
Rain can not only delay harvesting but also increase the grains’ moisture content and discoloration, making the produce hard to sell. Farmers are afraid that the Food Corporation of India (FCI) will make its purchase norms stricter. Basmati, which has no minimum support price (MSP), will be prone to price fluctuation if the grains get damaged. Private traders buy this item for export, so a price drop is natural if the quality is compromised. “Rain, at this stage, if it continues for two-three days, will affect the kharif crops. It will affect yield and quality of paddy crop which is at the harvesting stage,” said Punjab agriculture department director Gurwinder Singh.
Calling such untimely rains “catastrophic” for farmers, K S Aulakh, former vice chancellor of the Punjab Agriculture University (PAU), Ludhiana, said paddy crop is ready for harvest and the retreating monsoon will result in damage. “Paddy is at the stage of ripening and farmers will be ruined,” he said.
He added that there were holistic changes to tackle harvest change which is having an impact all over the world. “There have been more rains this week than in July,” he said.
Rain at this point is also bad for cotton crop that’s ready for picking. The official procurement of both paddy and cotton starts from October 1, when the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) will also enter the market. Punjab has cultivated paddy, including basmati, in 30.84 lakh hectares and the state government expects 191 lakh metric tonnes of grains to arrive in the mandis.
Farmer unionist Sukhdev Singh Kokri Kalan of BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) said: “The compensation for damage to paddy crop due to July’s heavy rain in Fazilka and Muktsar districts and the loss to cotton in Bathinda, Mansa, Muktsar, and Fazilka due to pest attack has not reached the farmers, so far. If the crop is damaged, the government should consider it a natural calamity and pay us adequate compensation.”
The rainfall has deluged many areas of Bathinda, Mansa, and Barnala. Most of the markets in Mansa are inundated, forcing people to remain indoors and close their businesses. Bathinda recorded 43 millimetres of rainfall on Saturday.