Jagatsinghpur: Even though people living in coastal Odisha heaved a sigh of relief as the report from the Indian Metrological Department (IMD) predicted that the cyclonic storm ‘Bulbul’ is moving towards north and northwestwards of West Bengal and Bangladesh, but heavy rain under the influence of the cyclonic storm was predicted triggering fear among farmers in the coastal districts including Jagatsinghpur.
With paddy already battered by previous unseasonal rainfall, farmers in the coastal district were worried over further rainfall which will play havoc on left out paddy and vegetables.
The cyclonic storm induced rainfall has come at a time when paddy is nearing harvesting. In view of the upcoming situation, the agricultural department issued an advisory for the farmers in 15 districts of the state.
The department advised farmers to immediately harvest their paddy and vegetables if they are in the situation ready to harvest. Farmers lamented that if the paddy get socked in the rain further it will attract further attack of pest.
The farmers further said paddy has just passed the flowering stage and will ripen in a few days. “Heavy rain due to cyclone in this stage will damage all our produced,” said a farmer in the district.
The farmers had expected that this year they would harvest about 3.44 lakh metric tonnes of paddy from 86,000 hectares of land in the district.
But a farmer expressed his concern saying that, all their labour they invested in farming will go in vain and they will plunge in bankruptcy.
The vegetable farmers in the district said vegetables in the field will take some more days to attain the salable size. In such condition, the cyclone induced rain will damage them in the field, lamented the farmers.
Notably, the district had faced heavy rain on October 24 and 25. The Met department recorded 800 ml rain on October 24 and 801 ml rain in October 25 in eight blocks of the district.
About 50% paddy and vegetables in various parts of the district, especially in Ersama block, had been destroyed in following the rain. Aanother spell of rain within a month will adversely affect our daily bread, lamented farmers.
Almost all the vegetables are presently selling at an exorbitant price. In this situation, cyclone induced heavy rain damage local crops that will create imbalance in demand and supply. This in result leads to further increase in vegetable prices in the state.