Tamil Nadu: Paucity of water hits harvest, paddy yield down 40% in delta

By N Ramesh

Farmers in the Cauvery delta region, which recorded a fall in samba paddy acreage this year, are now complaining about nearly 40% drop in crop yield. Reduction in flow of Cauvery water from Mettur dam and rainfall deficit during northeast monsoon, which led to the fall in samba cultivation, may have impacted the crop yield too, farmers said.

With samba and thalady paddy being cultivated in 2,96,557 acres, the paddy coverage area in Thanjvaur district has come down by 50,705 acres this year. AKR Ravichander, a farmer from Ammaiyagaram, said, “We used to get 42 to 45 paddy bags (60 kg each) per acre. This year, the yield has come down to 30 bags. In some areas, the yield was only 27 bags, which is a 50% dip.” R Sukumaran of Orathanadu echoed similar concerns. “Last year we got at least 40 bags per acre. This year the yield has come down to 20-25 bags per acre,” he said.

Usually, pests infesting crops will get washed away in monsoon rain. Due to deficit rainfall this year, pest attacks too have led to the drop in yield, he said. The crop cutting experiments carried out by the agriculture department across the district also point to the ominous trend.

According to an official, harvesting is complete in about 49,000 acres, which is about 17% of the total area under paddy in the district. While harvesting is gathering momentum in all the 14 blocks, the lowest yield of 172 kg of paddy per acre was recorded at Vannarapettai. While the historical average paddy yield in the district is 1,417 kg per acre, the average yield last year was 1,864 kg per acre, the official said.

Farmers in Tiruvarur district face the same predicament. According to officials out of 1,44,783 hectares of samba and thalady paddy cultivation in the district, harvesting is over in around 40,000 hectares.

Though the district-level yield data is yet to be collated, officials said the yield has gone down significantly compared to last year. “In Needamangalam, which used to record the highest yield in the district, the figure now stands only at about four tonnes per hectare. Farmers in the area used to get more than five tonnes per hectare (25% drop),” an official said.

V Sathyanarayanan, general secretary of the consortium of Cauvery delta farmers and resident of Seruvamani in the district, said water from Mettur dam was not available when samba paddy was around 40 to 50 days of age, affecting the growth of tillers. Rice tiller is a specialised grain-bearing branch that grows independently of the mother stem by means of its own adventitious roots. “Only the main shoot had grains leading to heavy yield loss,” he said. As a result, farmers in the district who used to get between 4.5 and 5 tonnes are getting a yield of only around 2.5 tonnes per hectare, he said.

“The state government which has been indifferent should come forward to compensate the farmers,” he said. The situation is not different in the coastal districts of Nagapattinam and Mayiladuthurai. Of the total 65,000 hectares cultivation area, harvest is complete in nearly 10,000 hectares. The average yield is said to be only around two tonnes per hectare, which is about a tonne lesser than last year, indicating nearly a 40% dip in yield. In Mayiladuthurai district, of the total 70,000 hectares, harvest has been completed in about 50,000 hectares. The average yield is stated to be about four tonnes per hectare, which is almost the same as last year, officials said.

This article has been republished from The New Indian Express.