Tamil Nadu - Erode   

Paddy farmers shift to sugarcane cultivation

R. Sundaram

Poor rainfall and labour shortage have forced the switchover

ERODE: With poor rainfall and labour shortage, farmers in the district have decided to raise sugarcane instead of paddy even though the water release for irrigation of wet crop in the Lower Bhavani Project canal commenced on August 15. Till date paddy has been raised on 35,000 hectares as against the usual one lakh hectares.

Collector D. Karthikeyan said the agriculture department had selected seeds and fertilizers. But because of labour shortage the farmers decided to raise sugarcane. Sugarcane has been raised on 18,689 hectares and is expected to be raised in over 7,000 hectares in a month.

Various farmers' representatives said before October-end they planned sugarcane cultivation in over 15,000 hectares.

The Collector further said farmers could not conduct transplantation owing to poor rainfall. Till September 26 the district received 245.2 mm of rain of the total expected 717 mm. Even though the reservoirs had comfortable water storage, paddy needed rain, he said.

Regarding other ayacuts in the district, the Joint Director of Agriculture, Jagath Narayanan, said paddy harvest has been made recently in 5,169 hectares of land at Thadapalli and Arakkankottai ayacuts and the yield was encouraging with 7.1 tonne per hectare.

The paddy crop was in good condition in over 1,500 hectares in Kalingarayan ayacut. The transplantation of paddy crop over 400 hectares of land were completed in Mettur West Bank canal ayacut.

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