Loss of standing crops leaves farmers in distress

GANJAM: We visited Podagada, a beautiful village surrounded by hills near the Bay of Bengal, under Ramagarh gram panchayat of Ganjam district to take stock of the situation after Phailin. While entering to the village, we saw a gigantic tree destroyed in the cyclone and an asbestos house of one Ramesh Pradhan near the tree was also totally damaged. Like Ramesh’s house, 12 another houses of the village had been damaged. We met some elder persons of the village. They told us about the huge loss due to heavy damage of fruit bearing trees like coconut, mango, jackfruit and cashew along with kewda yards.

The villagers said that paddy crops were affected as salty water of a canal connecting sea and Chilika entered into the paddy field. “The paddy plants, which were in a stage of flowering, were destroyed due to the storm,” said Jogi Pallai, a villager, adding, “It will severely affect the yield.”

Another villager Pabana Pradhan, a farmer who cultivates kewda flower, said that most of the kewda grooves faced the ire of the Phailin. “I can’t get a single flower this year, though I usually pluck 400 to 500 flowers everyday during the season,” he lamented.

After processing, kewda flowers are normally used for perfume and Gutkha industry. Around 20,000 acres of land in the areas Chikiti, Ganjam, Chatrapur and Rangeilunda of Ganjam district have kewda grooves. It has a good market in and outside of the country, but Phailin wiped them out.

We visited Karpada village under Ganjam block to see the condition of betel vines. We found vine yards severely affected. Most of the leaves were rotten. A farmer of the village Raju Reddy said the betel leaves were in demand and the farmers earn good money out of it, but the gale razed them all.

Notably, around 2,000 acres of land in the blocks of Ganjam, Rangeilunda, Patrapur, Hinjili have betel vine yards and the farmers sell it in and outside of the State to get good money, but the recent crop loss created a heavy burden on the farmers.

Similarly, lakhs of cashew trees had been destroyed in several places of the district. Cashew is another important cash crop in the district which has been grown over 50,000 hectares of land in Ganjam, Chatrapur, Khallikote and other blocks. “I lost two acres filled with cashew trees in the cyclone, which will take years to get its previous state,” said farmer Dama Pradhan of Podagada-Jhatipadar village under Ganjam block.

Loss of livelihood along with houses in the cyclone has left the farming community in utter distress. Electricity problem will be solved after October 30 according to Energy Minister Arun Sahoo, but the restoration of livelihood of lakhs of farmers may take a pretty long time.

Published on October 23, 2013 in The Pioneer