The coming week will be cruicial for the country’s economic fortunes, even as the government prepares for the worst.
Orissa kharif season hit
Bhubaneswar: With 66 per cent less than normal rainfall this month so far, Orissa is likely to witness drought-like situation if the monsoon fails to reach its coast in another week or so.
“The kharif operation in the state has been affected though it has not reached alarming levels,” said Damodar Rout, state’s agriculture minister.
The kharif season in Orissa mainly veers around cultivation of paddy. With less than 30 per cent of agricultural land having irrigation facility, farmers are mostly dependent on monsoon to carry out their activity.
Normally, monsoon reaches the Orissa coast in the second week of June following which the sowing of seeds begins, continuing up to July 15. After that the farmers undertake transplantation of saplings and this operation continues up to August 15.
However, due to the delayed monsoon, the sowing of seeds has been put off in most parts of the state. “Two-week delay in sowing is manageable. But if there is no rain for another week or so, this will severely affect the agricultural operation and our kharif target,” said UP Singh, secretary, agriculture department of the government of Orissa. The state had targeted to produce 70 lakh tonnes of rice in kharif 2009.
— Dillip Satapathy
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Bengal paddy to take 25% hit
Kolkata: Rainfall in the next seven days will decide the fate of thousands of farmers engaged in paddy cultivation in West Bengal, the largest rice-producing state in the country.
Even if rain occurs, the production would be at least 25 per cent less than normal, which was about 15,500,000 tonnes in 2008-09.
With monsoon delayed by more than two weeks, farmers have stopped purchasing seeds for seedbed preparation, the stage prior to transplantation.
According to Pranab Chattopadhyay, professor at the Department of Seed Science and Technology, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Vidyalaya, Nadia, transplantation can be done till the first week of August (after seedbed preparation for about 25 days), though the productivity might get hampered. While wet seedbed could be saved from the heat wave through artificial irrigation, seeds in dry seedbeds have almost withered and died in the nursery.
Aman rice, or the rice sown by July 15, accounts for more than 50 per cent of the total rice production in Bengal.
West Bengal Agriculture Minister Naren De said: “Even if rain occurs by the first week of July, there might not be a major problem in production.”
— Ishita Ayan Dutt & Namrata Acharya
AP pins hopes on next week
Hyderabad: Though the southwest monsoon advanced into the state on June 1, it has remained inactive so far. Only isolated showers have been reported during the last week. However, the agriculture department is optimistic that monsoon would revive around June 27.
“The delay in monsoon will not affect the output. There is time for sowing and resowing. If the rainfall is good, it can make up for the delay,” said an agriculture department official.
The department is also making a list of alternative crops to be raised if the monsoon does not revive by July 15. According to officials, sowing can happen till July 31. If the monsoon does revive by then, the farmers would have to go for short duration crops like jowar, redgram, ragi and the 110-day paddy variety.
The rainfall so far is about at 50 per cent deficit at 45.3 mm (from June 1 to 14), as against the normal of 88.9 mm. Of the five agro-climatic zones in the state, only the Rayalaseema zone received normal rainfall, while the remaining got deficit rainfall ranging between 4 per cent and 67 per cent less than the normal.
— Krishna Mohan
Maha farmers up seed stocks
Mumbai: Soybean farmers are holding their seed stocks double than the average requirement amid apprehensions that the delay in monsoon may need second sowing this season.
In normal circumstances, the country requires between 550,000 and 600,000 tonnes of soybean seed for sowing. But the delay in monsoon has threatened farmers into holding stocks as much as possible so that the largest kharif oilseed crop can be sown second time if first sown crop fails due to drought or heavy downpour later.
According to an estimate by the Indore-based Soybean Processors’ Association (SOPA), farmers are holding over 1.2 million tonnes, double then the normal requirement. Still, daily arrivals are quite high — between 50,000 and 70,000 bags of 100 kg, compared with below 25,000 bags around same time last year.
Attributing higher arrivals to farmers’ extended period of stockholding, SOPA co-ordinator Rajesh Agrawal said, “The arrivals were 25 per cent lower till March as farmers were estimating a further spurt in prices.”
— Dilip Kumar Jha
UP farmers delay sowing
LUCKNOW: The fear of drought is haunting the farmers of Uttar Pradesh where over 60 per cent of farming is dependent on monsoon.
The delay in monsoon this year is causing worry among farmers since it is the time to sow kharif crops. Farmers have deferred sowing major cash crops like sugarcane and paddy.
Normally, monsoon hits UP by June 18. However, it has got delayed this year like in the rest of the country.
If UP does not receive rainfall by June 30, drought-like conditions are likely to prevail causing extensive damage to the kharif crops in the state.
— Virendra Singh Rawat
Haryana revises target
CHANDIGARH: Delayed monsoon and expectation of scanty rainfall this season have made the Haryana government revise the target for paddy transplantation in the state.
The state agriculture department has set the target of 1,210,00 hectares last year and the target for this year is envisaged at 1,150,000 hectares.
The decrease in acreage of 60,000 hectares has been made to meet the water requirement that is needed in ample quantity for paddy.
Paddy transplantation begins in mid-June and lasts till August-end. The paddy transplantation schedule may be effected this year owing to insufficient supply of water.
Only 49 per cent of the total area in Haryana is irrigated by tubewells and the rest depends on monsoon. Paddy needs 5-6 cycles of irrigation.
The transplantation of sathi (a variety of paddy that takes 60 days to mature) has been completely banned in Haryana as it absorbs huge quantity of water.
Since most of the farmers depend on monsoon, last week the farmers observed protests for more power supply in certain pockets.
Presently, farmers get five hours of power supply everyday. To overcome the power shortage, the chief minister announced eight hours of power supply from July 1 to support the paddy transplantation.
— Komal Amit Gera