The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Farmers short of fertilizers

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Saturday, Jun 28, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Farmers short of fertilizers

Special Correspondent

NAGAPATTINAM: Farmers in the Cauvery delta region of Nagapattinam district on Friday requested the Collector to take steps to ensure adequate supply of fertilisers through primary agricultural co-operative societies and private fertiliser dealers to meet the requirement of the farmers for cultivation of kuruvai paddy crop.

Participating in the district farmers meeting convened by the district administration to hear their grievances and suggestions on agriculture and irrigation, many farmers brought to the notice of A.Annadurai, District Revenue Officer, who chaired the meeting, that they were finding it difficult to get the required quantity of fertilisers from several primary agricultural co-operative banks (PACBs) and were forced to purchase the fertilisers from private traders who sell at exorbitant rates.

Farmers Munusamy and Arumugam, who came all the way from Kollidam block, and Veerachamy from Vedaranyam, said that farmers were facing hardship in getting fertilisers, paddy seeds and also crop loan at many places. They requested the Government to streamline the supply of fertilisers, paddy seeds and disburse crop loan quickly.

A few farmers told the DRO that the Mettur water released for irrigation did not reach several tailend areas and appealed for maintaining normal supply in the Cauvery and Vennar river systems so that all major irrigation channels would get water supply without difficulty.

Several farmers complained about the non-desilting of irrigation channels at many villages had affected free flow of water to the paddy fields.

Mr Annadurai said that the district administration took all out efforts to ensure adequate supply of fertilisers through the PACBs and pointed out that a monitoring committee consisting of revenue and agriculture department officials had been formed to inspect all PACBs about the fertiliser stock kept by them and extension centres of Agriculture department for supply of kuruvai paddy seeds.

Collector M.Jayaraman said on Thursday that all the PACBs and the commercial banks had been instructed to provide crop loan to eligible farmers quickly and pointed out that more than Rs.76 crore had so far been disbursed to about 47,000 farmers.

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