PONDA: The Kundaim farmers are in distress as their paddy fields are damaged for the second consecutive year due to heavy rainfall.
They are worried about the future of paddy cultivation due to nature’s fury and are facing financial crisis due to crop damage.
The farmers said, “Last year’s crop was destroyed due to breach of bandhara leading to entry of saline river water into the fields and this year too they were deprived a good crop due to heavy rains inundating the fields.
“We have no other source of livelihood and so we took the risk to cultivate the paddy fields despite the damage of crop last year. The excessive rainfall this month led to submerging of paddy fields under water which ruined our hard efforts when the standing crop had come for harvesting,” they added.
Only the few farmers, who had cultivated the fields this year with hope that at least this year there would be no much rainfall, have now found themselves in trouble as their efforts and money spent on the paddy cultivation is wasted due to heavy rain.
Many farmers had kept their khazan fields fallow this year due to previous year’s experience of excessive rainfall damaging the crop and also leading to breach of riverside bandhara that allowed saline water entry, submerging the paddy fields.
Local Sarpanch Ramu Naik said, “The farmers are facing difficulties in bringing the harvested crop to their village as the entire fields have turned muddy due to heavy rain.”
He said, “In order to get compensation for last year’s crop damage all formalities are completed but the farmers did not received any compensation yet.” The farmers said that they are paying wages of Rs 800 for the migrant workers to harvest the crop and it is not affordable if the government doesn’t provide financial help.
Many farmers said, “Local MLA Sudin Dhavalikar provide help in the form of seeds, tilling machine, but at the same time they also need support from the government to protect their paddy cultivation.”
