Yaas dashes harvest hopes of farmers in Kendrapada district

KENDRAPADA: Incessant rain and subsequent floods due to Yaas has severely damaged large tracts of ready-to-harvest green gram, black gram, vegetables, banana, betel and other crops in Kendrapada district’s Aul, Rajkanika and Rajkanika blocks.
“I harvested black gram grown over an acre last week, but could not do so over the rest three acres due to non-availability of labourers. Now my crop has been damaged,” Santosh Kar, a farmer of Namatara village, said.
Similarly, the vegetable crops of Bhaskar Jena of Kalaspur village was damaged.He is very troubled as he has to return the bank loan. The cyclone has hit the economy of around 5,000 betel farmers with heavy rains accompanied by high velocity winds badly damaging the vines. “Had there been no cyclone, we would have been busy harvesting betel,” said Nityananda Swain, farmer of Suniti village.
After the natural disaster, now the farmers fear more losses to their crops if rainwater is not flushed out from their land within a week, said Umesh Chandra Singh, a farmer leader and president of Krushak Sabha, district unit.
Every year farmers of these areas face crop loss due to cyclone, flood, less rain and unseasonal rain. “But very little is done to alleviate their problems. Farmers are still trying to assess their losses,” added Singh.
The government’s faulty agricultural policy is responsible for the woes of peasants. “The farmers never insure their crops and suffer during natural disasters. The government is yet to formulate a concrete policy to insure the agricultural lands. The affected farmers should be provided with seeds and farm loans,” rued Singh.
Official sources said all cyclone -affected farmers will be provided loans from the government, cooperative banks or financial institutions. “Seeds will be provided to them too. The administration has directed the district agriculture officer to submit a report on crop loss,” said Sambeet Satapathy, the district emergency officer of Kendrapada.