Though monsoon has reached the state, scanty rains has prevented the paddy sowing work to go on full stream in Chhattisgarh.
According to sources, sowing work could be completed only in 12 per cent of the area. Normally, about 60 per cent sowing is completed in the state by the first week of July. The paddy acreage for the kharif season has been set at 3.5 million hectares.
“The situation is very alarming and the production is likely to be affected badly this year,” agriculture scientist Sanket Thakur told Business Standard. The paddy saplings are ready in the nursery, but the farmers cannot start the transplantation work as the sowing in most of the area is incomplete, he added.
According to experts, mercury level was very high during summer this year and it had dried up the field. The monsoon showers that the state had received so far were not enough to prepare the field for agriculture work. A heavy to very heavy rains could bring some changes, they added.
The other problem that the farmers are facing relates to the shortage of seeds. The state government wants the farmers to go for early variety of paddy due to delay and short rainfall in the state. “But the farmers are running from pillar to post to get the seeds for the early and medium variety of paddy crops,” Thakur added.
Now, when the possibility of sowing late variety of paddy crop is bleak, the farmers are left with no other option than to go for early and medium variety of paddy. This would come in the way of good paddy output this year in the state.
The state government had already curtailed the target of paddy production to 5.8 million tonnes with productivity of 1650 kilograms per hectare. Last year, a target of producing 5.6 million tonnes of paddy was set. But 5.4 million tonnes could be produced.
