The Hindu : Front Page : Cultivable area in Erode shrinks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 05, 2007
ePaper

Front Page

Front Page

Cultivable area in Erode shrinks

Karthik Madhavan

Most of the 20,000 acres in Noyyal ayacut is fallow The Kalingarayan ayacut likely to become barren in ten years

ERODE: Acres of lush green fields, golden paddy awaiting sickle and scattered scarecrows overseeing vast areas - well, these may soon be images from the past in and around Erode district.

For, the area under cultivation is dropping fast and once-fertile lands are turning uncultivable, rue farmers, who blame untreated effluents from dyeing units and tanneries as the main culprits.

Take for example the Noyyal ayacut, which has 20,000 acres in Erode and Karur districts.

According to the ayacut president, V. K. Ganesan, almost all of the 20,000 acres is uncultivable, due to the discharge of effluents from dyeing units in and around Tirupur.

Fallow

"For the last seven years we have not had any agricultural activity worth mentioning, save one or two occasions, when following some rains, a few farmers raised maize to feed cattle," he says. Today, most of the 20,000 acres, despite the availability of water, is fallow.

Almost similar is the fate of Kalingarayan ayacut, which has around 13,000 acres. (Kalingarayan ayacut farmers, however, claim the area under cultivation is around 24,000 acres, both under direct and indirect irrigation).

Pollution increasing

The president of the Kalingayaran farmers' association, V. K. Velayudham, says with the effects of pollution increasing by the day, the yield has considerably gone down.

"A decade ago, farmers produced 30 quintals of turmeric an acre, which is now down to around 15. Likewise, paddy has come down from 40 bags of 65 kg each an acre to 20, and sugarcane from 60 tonnes to 35."

He expects the Kalingarayan-irrigated lands to turn barren in another ten years.

The story from the LBP ayacutdars sounds similar too.

President of the farmers' association S. Nallasamy says that while agriculture in Noyyal and Kalingarayan is in the intensive care unit, LBP is on its way there.

The Agriculture Department here maintains that the total area under cultivation has not come down and that the yield has even increased.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page