Barabanki/Kannauj/Shahjahanpur/Sitapur/Unnao (Uttar Pradesh)
Just over a week ago, Veerbhan, a farmer from Barke Raja village in Kannauj district had sown potatoes in two acres of land. Instead of the comforting sight of green shoots coming out of the soil, his land is now knee deep in water, the potato crop completely destroyed.
“It rained so much last evening (October 18) between seven and two in the morning, that my field is now a pond,” Veerbhan told Gaon Connection yesterday on October 19. “I had sowed potatoes in eleven bighas [2.8 hectares] of land and had spent nearly eleven thousand rupees on each bigha. I have to start sowing all over again,” he sighed.
Like him, Ram Lakshmi had planted potatoes in 1.75 acres of land in her village Barka Gaon in Kannauj district. “But even before they could take root, it began to rain heavily. I had borrowed heavily to cultivate potatoes,” 60-year-old Ram Lakshmi told Gaon Connection. She had borrowed nearly Rs 90,000, she said, from an agent and a moneylender. “I have eight children to look after and the government has not helped at all in any way,” she added.
Many districts in Uttar Pradesh were lashed with incessant rains for the past three days leading to considerable damage to paddy, sugarcane, banana and vegetable cultivation in the state.
The rains accompanied by heavy winds that began on October 17 and did not stop for three whole days across the state, have caused considerable damage to crops, some that were just planted, and others that were about to be harvested. The continuous rain has prevented the water from draining away and the fields are standing water logged.
A 150 kilometers away from where Veerbhan surveyed the soggy remains of his potatoes, in Fil Nagar, a village in Shahjahanpur district, 40-year-old Balakram watched in despair as water swirled about on his three bighas (0.75 ha) of land. “I had sown cauliflower at a cost of twenty thousand rupees. It is all gone,” he told Gaon Connection.
Farmers across the state are in distress due to repeated crop damages. “The rains have caused untold damage to farmers. Harvested paddy in the fields were damaged, land being prepared to receive potatoes was also inundated. And that which had already been sown is gone,” Ahmed, a lawyer from Gaura Sailak village in Barabanki district, told Gaon Connection. Ahmed estimated that nearly 50 to 60 per cent of paddy in his area was destroyed in the rains.
Chief Minister asks for report on losses
In a meeting in Lucknow, on October 18, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath called for a report from the districts on the extent of crop damage. He asked the district magistrates to prepare a detailed report on the loss to life, property, cattle, homes, etc. Once that was done, compensation would be speedily paid to those affected, the chief minister said.
A toll free number (1800-8896-868/ 1800-200-5142 for farmers in and around Kannauj and Lucknow) was set up for those farmers who had insured their crops under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. They were asked to lodge their complaint within 72 hours. In Uttar Pradesh farmers could also lodge their complaint at the chief minister’s helpline number, 1076.
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According to the department of agriculture, in Uttar Pradesh this year, approximately six million hectares of land was under paddy cultivation. In the Purvanchal area a lot of the paddy is harvested by Diwal in most districts.
Those farmers who use the combine have already cut their crops that were lying on the fields to dry. The rains have ruined those crops and inundated farmlands.
“This has been the heaviest rainfall in the last ten years,” Mahesh Palawat, vice president, Meteorology And Climate Change, Skymet Weather Services, a private Indian company that provides weather forecasting services, told Gaon Connection.
“The low pressure area from the Bay of Bengal travelled via Madhya Pradesh to Uttar Pradesh. The easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal and the south westerly winds from the Arabia Sea created excessive moisture. In addition was the western disturbance from the hills that caused the excessive rains,” he explained.
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Additional burden
“I am not even sure if I can save any grains to take back home, or if everything will rot in the field itself,” Mahendra Singh from Behta Nathai Singh village in Unnao, told Gaon Connection. Mahendra Singh is looking at a loss of Rs 12,000 he had invested in cultivating paddy in his two bighas (0.5 ha) of land.
“The output of grains will be reduced and those that have been harvested already and have got wet, will get spoiled. It will be difficult to sell them,” the distressed farmer pointed out.
“I am a sharecropper. I borrowed money to cultivate paddy on my one and a half bighas of land,” Guru Prasad Bharatiya of Ajrayal Kheda village in Unnao district, told Gaon Connection. “The paddy was almost ready. I spent sleepless nights protecting my field from stray cattle, and now my hard work was washed away in Monday [October 18] night’s rain,” the 54-year-old farmer, who has a family of four to feed.
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Double blow to potato farmers
Meanwhile the potato farmers are reeling under the damage they have suffered. Not just in these rains, but the rains between October 5 and October 7 had already caused untold grief to those who had already planted the spuds.
Potato farms abound in Kannauj, Farrukhabad, Agra, Mainpur, Eta, Ittawah, and Kanpur where farmers usually do an early planting. The potatoes in the fields had rotted in the early October rains.
“I had asked for the potato seeds from Kannauj and had prepared my five acre field for planting,” Sagar Shukla from Tandpur village, Barabanki, told Gaon Connection.
“About sixty per cent of the harvested potatoes are in cold storage,” Mahesh Kumar, district horticulture officer, Barabanki informed Gaon Connection.
“More than ten per cent of the potatoes have been sown in the district already. The continuous rains are expected to have caused considerable damage” he added.
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Loss to vegetable crops too
The vegetables that were being prepared in anticipation of the approaching winter season have not fared well either. According to the farmers, it was certain that the cauliflowers planted in nurseries would rot after the deluge. Tomatoes and brinjal face the same fate, they said.
For the second consecutive year tomato farmer Ashok Maurya has faced losses. “I cultivate tomatoes in twenty bighas [five ha] of land I take on contract. I have been doing it for six years now,” said Maurya from Gondlamau in Sitapur district.
“I have invested about six thousand rupees per bigha. I spent so much money on spraying pesticides, which I had borrowed, but I don’t think I will get any produce at all,” the tomato farmer said.
“Such heavy rains over two days has led to the swelling of the rivers in the district,” Arvind Kumar Chaurasiya, district magistrate of Lakhimpur Kheri, told Gaon Connection. About 533,000 cusecs of water has been released from the Banbasa Barrage in Uttarakhand and that is bound to have an impact on western Uttar Pradesh, Chaurasiya said. “In 2013,when so much water was released, 181 villages were affected,” the district magistrate added.
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The level of water in rivers Ghaghara and Sharada can rise up to two and a half feet, the official warned. That could cause further damage to crops, Chaurasiya said.
While the forecast for Uttar Pradesh is clear skies from today (October 20), heavy rains are expected to lash Bihar and West Bengal.
With inputs from Virendra Singh, Barabanki; Ramji Mishra, Shahjahanpur; Ajay Mishra, Kannauj; Mohit Shukla, Sitapur; and Sumit Yadav, Unnao.
Read the story in Hindi.
