BARPETA, May 3 � The early wave of Monsoon that caused heavy rain for the last fortnight creating flood has inflicted heavy losses on the farmers in Barpeta district. Though the damage is yet to be assessed but it is officially estimated that more than 25000 hectares of cultivation has been damaged.
The major sufferers are those farmers who cultivate early ahu paddy followed by onion and cashewnut.
According to an estimate in about 40000 hectares of land early ahu, eeri and boro paddies were cultivated across the district. Due to the drought-like situation in the months of February and March the farmers had to incur heavy costs on the fuel of the shallow pumps used to irrigate their croplands. When the rain started during the last part of March they foresaw huge production of paddy. But the boon soon turned into bane when the rain continued for a fortnight and inundated most of the croplands.
Almost all the boro paddy has been wasted as it is cultivated in relatively deep areas. Though the eeri paddy is not completely damaged, more than 60 per cent of the crop has been washed away or submerged by the untimely flood.
In the char areas of the district vast area of land is cultivated with onion, garlic and cashew nuts. All the lands cultivated with such valuable crops and vegetables have been submerged by the rising flood of mighty Brahmaputra and these are completely rotten now.
In a number of areas in the district, bao (kind of paddy with variety of species sown during March-May and harvested during November-December) is sown during this period in the low lying areas. Most of the cultivators had completed sowing of these paddy seeds and these had germinated. But the heavy rain did not spare a single seedling. There are farmers who completely depend upon bao and there are farmers who completely depend upon boro. Both of them are hounded with the fear of starvation during the days to come.
The price of fertilizers, pesticides and the fuel have risen during the last one year and is beyond the reach of the farmers and most of them cultivated crops by borrowing money either from the local usurer or from banks. But they have become helpless now thinking about the bleak future.
Till now the government has not attended to the vast devastation caused by the natural calamity. It was alleged by the farmers that no official or political leaders and public representative has visited the affected areas so far. They expressed the apprehension that the loss would not be evaluated at all and as a result it would not be compensated in any way.
Heavy damage to the croplands in this season will not only affect the individual farmers but it will create a huge deficit in the production of the rice in the State. So it is high time that the government ponders over the matter seriously and come forward to help the farmers so that the deficit could be made good.
