A double blow has hit farmers this Kharif season in Andhra Pradesh — the country's rice bowl — with drought and devastating floods threatening a major shortage in the foodgrain.
First it was the worst drought in 50 years that hit the farmers hard at the beginning of the season and even before they could recover from it, the deluge — the heaviest in over a 100 years — has rubbed salt to their injuries.
A preliminary estimate has put the loss, only on account of the floods, at a staggering Rs 1,250 crore to the agriculture sector, state agriculture minister N Raghuveera Reddy said.
Paddy, the prime crop in most parts of the state including the Krishna delta, has been badly affected due to drought and now due to the deluge.
While the state agriculture department had estimated that paddy output will be about 85 lakh tonnes in Kharif season, the production will now be 30 lakh tonnes less due to drought and the deluge, he said.
"Our revised estimate is that Kharif paddy production will be around 55 lakh tonnes only," Reddy said.
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The overall foodgrain production is also expected to fall by a whopping 30 per cent of the estimated 113.48 lakh tonnes, it is feared.
Apart from foodgrains, horticulture crops have also suffered extensive damages in the districts like Guntur, Krishna, Mahbubnagar and Kurnool. While Mahbubnagar produces vegetables in large quantities, Kurnool is famous for onions and tomatoes.
The state, which is already reeling under severe scarcity of red gram, will have to bear the shortage in the coming months as the crop in more than 60,000 acres in Guntur district alone has been destroyed in the flash floods caused by the receding monsoon.
The losses that are being currently talked about are only preliminary estimates as the enumeration of actual damage has not been done so far, officials said.
The state government is now deploying special teams in each block to calculate crop losses in a detailed manner after which a clear picture will emerge, they said.
The floods have left farmers shattered in Guntur district, where paddy, chillies, cotton, turmeric and tobacco are grown.
"From June to September, we were left looking towards the skies for rain and could not take up cultivation because of the drought. Now, when rains started pouring, the floods have come as a bolt from the blue and left us devastated," a delta farmer Ramakotaiah lamented.
His three-acre paddy field near Bhattiprolu has been inundated and he finds no way to recover from the crisis.
It was a situation that farmers in most parts of the state faced three years ago when drought and floods had occurred but to a lesser extent.
The Rabi crop had saved the farmers from distress that year as a result of which agriculture production touched about 163 lakh tonnes.
"It is a difficult time for the farmers now. The impact of the Kharif losses will surely be felt on the Rabi crop as well as on the small and marginal farmers who will find it hard to recover from this double blow," a senior official of the agriculture department said.
The process of rescheduling Kharif loans, announced after the drought, has not yet been completed and now the banks will be required to carry out all formalities so that the farmers could avail of fresh crop loans.
Even the insurance payment on the crop losses suffered on account of drought has not been done with the state government awaiting of release of the Central share of Rs 358 crore, officials said.
"We are requesting the Centre to extend the three per cent subsidy to the re-scheduled loans as well. We have also asked the insurance companies to pay compensation to the affected farmers without the mandatory crop cutting exercise as there is no crop," Reddy said.