Telkoi: Even as the Met department predicted heavy to very heavy rainfall due to a low pressure in the Bay of Bengal, farmers in rural areas fretted due to delay in paddy sowing.
“Will it rain this year, or no?” is the daily dilemma of farmers of this block in Keonjhar district as they stared at the sky every day.
While the Monsoon has hit Odisha capital and many districts a month back, farmers in this block feared a deficit in rainfall that could result in a drought-like situation.
“Farmers had tilled their land and were waiting for the rain. But the cloud comes, sheds a few drops and goes away,” a farmer said, adding that the tilled land has already developed cracks due to lack of rain.
Hundreds of farmers of neighbour blocks in this district are also facing the same problem. Many have even dropped the idea of sowing paddy during the current year and have left to work as migrant workers.
According to reports, the block has 12,558 hectares of farmland. With no irrigation facilities, farmers are forced to depend on monsoon. Moreover, a handful of irrigation projects present in the block are on the verge of drying up due to poor rainfall in the current year.
When contacted, agriculture officer Manjubala Naik said farmers are having a tough time due to no rainfall.
“We are expecting rainfall in next eight to ten days as predicted by the MeT department. If there is no rain in these days, there are fewer chances of a good harvest this year,” she said, adding that the district administration has been alerted and steps were being taken for sourcing alternate crops that would require less rainfall.
PNN
