Hardoi, Rae Bareli, Barabanki: From afar, the scene of abandoned cattle grazing in a lush meadow appeared like that default desktop screensaver – a serene landscape spread over a hundred acres, the dark green of the fields in stark contrast to the blue sky dotted with white clouds .
Then Guddu Yadav broke the magic. A small farmer from Madhopur village in Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh, Yadav owns a couple of acres of grassland, which is actually a vast rice field, now taken over by grass and weeds growing in abundance. have taken.
Yadav and most other farmers of the village had been waiting for rains since June, so that paddy could be sown during the kharif crop season. By the end of July, they lost hope and decided to leave the land fallow.
They cannot afford a diesel-powered pump-set to irrigate the fields – it costs about Rs 1,500 to irrigate an acre of paddy field once. Prolonged drought means that the crop may require at least ten rounds of water until harvest. And it’s a loss deal.
rice is one water intensive A crop traditionally grown in flooded fields.
The rainfall deficit in Hardoi district is 48 per cent as compared to the long period or 50 year average. This compares with a decrease of 47 per cent in eastern Uttar Pradesh and 44 per cent across the state between June 1 and August 12.
“I lost a third of my wheat crop in May (due to the heat). Without a grain of rice this season, we may soon run out of food,” Yadav, who now barely survives on casual day jobs, said in a pleading tone.
In Mubarakpur village in Amethi district, about 250 km from Yadav’s fields, 70-year-old Chandrabhan Singh is struggling to save his one acre of paddy sown in late July. Singh has already spent around Rs 5,000 for irrigating his paddy field. Two weeks have passed since he planted the paddy, but it has not rained even once.
“Even if it rains from now on, I will lose a quarter of the production due to late sowing and weed outbreaks. If there is no rain, the yield will be nothing,” said Singh.
Last week, ThePrint visited five districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh – Amethi, Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh, Hardoi and Barabanki – to meet farmers and see the status of rice, the primary rainfed crop grown in these regions. The overwhelming feeling was one of despair—the paddy plants, the broken earth due to lack of moisture, and the overgrowth of grass and weeds.
For most farmers, planting has been delayed by more than a month, which means a drop in yield. The shortage could reduce domestic availability of rice, lead to higher consumer prices and curb exports.
With access to canal water and electric submersible pumps, only a few farmers from ThePrint manage their crops properly. And if it doesn’t rain from here, the planted crops can be abandoned as most farmers cannot afford expensive fuel for irrigation.
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’15 million tonnes at risk’
The plight of farmers like Yadav and Singh is fast turning into a tragedy. In addition to Jharkhand facing severe drought, tens of thousands of farmers in India’s fertile Gangetic plains spanning Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar are now grappling with deficient rains. These four states account for more than one third India’s rice production during the June-October kharif crop season.
Rice is a primary staple grown and consumed across India, and is dependent on rainfall. Kharif The season accounts for 86 per cent of the annual production. The rest are grown as winter or rabi crops, planted around October-November.
The fall in India’s rice production due to deficient rains will come on top of a reduced wheat crop, following an intense heat wave that forced the government to ban export in May. Is the world worried now if India is the top exporter of rice? 40 percent Shares in global trade, cereals can curb exports to keep inflation under check.
Data from the Agriculture Ministry shows that till August 11, rice sown has fallen by 44 lakh hectares, which is about 12.4 per cent less than the area planted last year. At an average yield of 2.5 tonnes per hectare which translates into an 11 million tonnes hit in production.
Moreover, thousands of farmers in states facing deficient rains have delayed sowing by more than a month, which will translate into lower yields. The ideal time for transplanting paddy is between mid-June to mid-July.
Delhi-based agri trade analyst S Chandrasekaran said an estimated 15 million tonnes of rice production (about 13 per cent of the kharif target of 112 million tonnes) could be at risk at this point of time.
“Besides deficient rainfall in four states and excess rainfall in some, several states such as Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Haryana prompted farmers to shift from water-intensive paddy cultivation to other crops such as pulses, coarse cereals and millets. Farmers in the southern states of Telangana and Tamil Nadu have also shifted from rice to cotton due to the hike in wholesale prices of natural fibres,” Chandrasekaran said.
He further said that “due to significant increase in imports by China, rice exports increased by 43 per cent (in USD value terms) in June 2022 as compared to the previous year”.
To be sure, domestic prices are already rising, buoyed by strong export demand from China and Bangladesh. According to data provided by the consumer affairs ministry, retail rice prices were seven per cent higher (as on August 14) year-on-year (as on August 14) compared to the negligible inflation rate of 0.9 per cent in mid-June.
planting to lose
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, rice has been sown in 23 million hectares across India so far. But as ThePrint finds out, late sowing and poor crop management can lead to a sharp drop in yields in states with high rainfall deficits and poor access to assured irrigation.
For example, on the morning of August 10, 55-year-old Prabhavati Singh started planting paddy in her three acres of land in Chaturpur village in Rae Bareli district. This was his second attempt at planting after the first nursery’s saplings withered.
Rice is first planted in a small parcel of land called a nursery, where it is nurtured for three weeks, after which the plants are planted in the main field. If saplings are planted from 35-40 days old nursery, it causes significant loss in yield.
Couldn’t wait any longer for an influencing rain. So, he hired a diesel pump-set and started watering his field from one end. The hired workers planted saplings at the wet end while the other end was still dry. It was an unusual sight – paddy fields are usually plowed, flooded with water and well pitted for a day before transplanting. It makes the soil soft and conducive to transplantation, destroys weeds and reduces water seepage.
“I cannot think of leaving the ground fallow. I will do whatever I do,” Prabhavati said. She had already spent over Rs 20,000, which was borrowed from a microfinance lender, to pay the planting expenses, with the hope that the rains would pick up.
Abhay Gaur, who sowed paddy on 70 acres in Hardoi, said that the ideal time for planting saplings is around June 15 and farmers planting in August are too late. .
“It is a social stigma for a farmer to leave the land barren. But nothing will happen in such fields,” warns Gaur, showing off his lush paddy field, mid-June, showing the crop waving in the wind.
A senior rice scientist at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Delhi, on the condition of anonymity, said the lack of rainfall and planting of saplings older than 30 days would adversely affect the yield.
“In canal irrigated areas like Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, the rice crop is doing well. But in parts with large rainfall deficits, it is a challenge to sustain the late sown crop. Irrigation with diesel pumps is very expensive. Planting 35-40 days old saplings will result in a huge drop in yield,” he said.
The scientist said that cracks in a month-old paddy field are a serious warning sign. This means that water supplied by diesel pumps will seep out rapidly and fields cannot remain moist even with periodic irrigation.
‘Zero divided by zero equals nothing’
This is a battle that many farmers are fighting. “I have spent over Rs 20,000 on diesel to save the rice field. But even after irrigating the crop for six hours continuously, it takes only half a day for the field to dry up,” said Hanuman Yadav, a farmer from Barabanki.
He said the drought he is battling adds to a more widespread problem facing farmers – stray cattle destroying crops.
“I’m studying letters That our income has doubled. But on the ground, this year, we lost a part of the wheat crop to heat and now, the rice crop due to drought,” said Hanuman Yadav.
ThePrint met more than 20 farmers over the course of three days, but no one said they had received any government advice or assistance. Farmers did not have suggestions for planting short duration rice varieties (to compensate for the delay in planting) or alternative crops like pulses. Some farmers of Hardoi had started cultivating groundnut and sugarcane on their own from rice due to less rainfall.
“If the rains fail there is little the government can do,” an official of the state agriculture department said on condition of anonymity. “I am not aware of any plan to declare drought or to announce subsidy on diesel for irrigation.”
A farmer taking ThePrint around Rae Bareli and Pratapgarh districts told an old adage on the monsoon – a lifeline for rural India. ,Sawan month flows Purvai, Barda Beach Basau Cow (When easterly winds blow in July-August, there will be no rain and crops will be damaged. Therefore, farmer should sell his ox (used for plowing) and buy a cow. At least he has milk to drink Will happen).
Nankau Pasi, 65, of Mubarakpur village in Pratapgarh, knows the proverb. “It rained only once in the last one month. But for a few fleeting moments. YouAhan is all blue but silence has passed (Zero divided by zero equals nothing) – and that’s how we feel at the moment. We do not even have enough to feed our cattle,” he said.
(Edited by Polomi Banerjee)
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