Paddy sowing starts today: Heatwave, delayed rains leave Haryana farmers worried
Amid possibility of delayed monsoon, Haryana agri department advises farmers to adopt DSR, diversification
Paddy transplantation is all set to start in Haryana on June 15, but the extended dry spell, coupled with delayed monsoon and insufficient power supply to the agriculture feeders, has left the farmers high and dry.
From Wednesday, there will be no restrictions on transplantation, but most of the farmers seem unable to start the process amid heatwave as they said that the tube well water is not sufficient to flood their fields for puddling.
The government has announced cash incentive of ₹4,000 for direct seeded rice (DSR) method, which requires 70% less water and 30% less input cost than the traditional method. But most of the farmers are still in the favour of the traditional method and waiting for the rains to prepare their fields for transplantation.
“We cannot even think to start transplantation without rains. Tube well water is not enough to protect other crops from the impact of heatwaves. If we will start paddy transplantation, the heatwave will kill my sugarcane and maize,” said Parveen Kaushik, a young farmer from Karnal’s Nilokheri.
However, the government has increased the power supply to agriculture feeders up to seven hours a day, which the farmers said is still not sufficient to flood the fields for puddling and transplantation.
“My nursery is ready, but I cannot start the transplantation from June 15 as we don’t have enough water to flood my eight acres and protect sugarcane crop as well,” said Ajay Kumar, a farmer from Indri of Karnal district. He said the tube well water is not enough to flood one acre in a day.
Sandeep Kumar, a farmer from Karnal’s Gharaunda, said, “We have two tube wells but we cannot transplant our 15 acres of paddy without rains. I have transplanted only three acres and find it difficult to keep it alive amid the heatwave.”
“We totally depend on the rains to irrigate 10 acres, but this year we are fearing that the delayed monsoon may create a problem and we will not be able to start transplantation by the first week of July,” said Des Raj of Karnal’s Sherpur village.
The agriculture meteorological department at Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University in Hisar said the weather will remain dry for the next couple of days and there is prediction of pre-monsoon showers in the parts of state from June 16 to June 20.
Meanwhile, officials of the state agriculture department have advised the farmers to adopt the DSR technique.
“Our initiative has attracted good response from the farmers as DSR technique has already been adopted on nearly 50,000 acres. We have sanctioned 450 new machines at 50% subsidy to help the farmers,” said Sumita Misra, additional chief secretary to the department of agriculture and farmers welfare.
Misra has urged the farmers to switch to DSR and get ₹4,000 cash incentive per acre or grow alternative crops for which they will get ₹7,000 per acre under Mera Pani Meri Virasat initiative.
Aditya Dabas, deputy director, agriculture, Karnal, stressed that there is a strong possibility that the monsoon could be delay for 10 to 15 days. “Farmers should adopt the DSR method without any further delay as this will not only help them save ₹10,000 per acre as input cost but will save 70% of groundwater too,” he added.
Officials in the statistics wing of the state agriculture department were expecting that the area under paddy will remain around 12.5 lakh hectares, but the delayed monsoon may cause a fall as farmers with limited resources of irrigation will not be able to transplant paddy.
