State to miss Krishi Karman Award 2014 as El Nino plays spoilsport
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, December 12 2014 :
As the effect of El Nino that occurred recently in Pacific Ocean due to sudden changed in warm and cold temperature was also felt in the State of Manipur which was characterized by drought-like situation, the production rate of paddy in the State for this year has been reduced marginally.
During the occurrence of El Nino, farmers in the State faced acute shortage of water at the time when it was most needed to harvest paddy fields.
Farmers were pushed to the wall in the absence of rainfall during the period greatly effecting production of paddy unlike in past years.
Sources from Agriculture Department said a target was set to produce six lakh metric tonne of paddy for this year.
According to reports submitted by concerned authorities from every district post the harvest season, the production of paddy for the current year was plunged to five lakhs twenty thousand metric tonne much lower than the target set.
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Imphal East is one of the districts where the production of paddy has been dropped marginally.
Paddy fields situated in high altitude in the district had faced acute shortage of water during the harvest season.
Although there was rainfall during the pre-monsoon and monsoon period in the area, the rate of rainfall was too low.
A farmer from Keirao Bitra in Imphal East told this daily that the Central Government was well aware that many parts of the world including northeastern States will be affected by El Nino.
The information must have been passed to the State Government priory.
Two things needed by a farmer during harvest season are timely rainfall and chemical fertilizers.
The way of supplying water from canals of paddy fields for harvesting is rarely seen in the State, he pointed out.
Reiterating that various farmers' organizations had put up the matter regarding difficulty in harvesting paddy due to shortage of rainfall but the government had not supplied even water pump to farmers as an alternative solution, he asserted that there is enough water flowing in rivers which can be used in paddy fields for harvesting.
Had water from rivers pumped out and supplied to paddy fields in time, heavy loss of money incurred by farmers in harvesting paddy in the current year could have saved to some extent, he exclaimed.