ALDONA: The continuous downpour that battered the State has reduced farmers in Aldona to tears as the rains have devastated their paddy fields.
The fields have been submerged under water for over a month and not only the recently sown paddy seeds but even transplanted fields have been destroyed in the village. Many farmers say that their only source of income has been ‘drowned’ in the rain now say it’s too late to sow again.
In Panarim, farmers say that lack of maintainence of drains has led to flooding and destruction of fields. “There is nothing that we can do as we neither have more seeds nor seedlings to transplant again,” said distressed farmers.
“The drains should be desilted as this has led to waterlogging. The release of excess water from the Tillari dam has made matters worse for us,” said farmers.
“This has never happened before. The overflowing water has entered fields as the drains are clogged,” said Varsha, another farmer from here.
“We have now deputed officials to visit the village and take stock of the situation and also asked farmers to submit details of crop loss with photographs. We are trying our best to reach out the distressed farmers through the Shetkari Adhar Nidhi scheme,” said ZAO Sampadi Dargarkar.
Devayani Bhagat, a farmer from Udoi Aldona hoped to get some compensation from for the crop loss.
“This was my only source of income and I hope the authorities will compensate me on time,” said Deepak Malvankar.
Meanwhile the fourth year students from Goa College of Agriculture, Ela farm, Old Goa extended a helping hand to farmers to fill forms and also interacted with the ryots and heard their grievances and demonstrated seed germination techniques to them.
Students Manya Hegde, Anushree Mesta and two others said that they were sharing with the farmers whatever they were taught in college during their BSC degree course and also learnt about traditional farming practices from the villagers.
Former Director of Agriculture Nelson Figueredo also sympathised with the farmers.
“The rains have played spoilt sport and the crop has been destroyed. Some farmers tried to plant again as the rains subsided but could not do much. Even second chance failed. Birds are another nuisance which again damage the crop. Under the support of Local MLA Adv Carlos and panchayat, we conducted camps for farmers and filled compensation forms under Shetkari Adhar Nidhi scheme. We were fortunate that we got 4 interns students from Goa College of Agriculture Old Goa who were also part of the help to farmers in filing the forms. In this way, we have helped over 60 farmers and even if anyone if left we are ready to help them. These forms will be submitted to the concerned department for compensation,” said Figueredo.
