Farmers face daunting task with no help
Sri Lanka’s farmers are facing the biggest crisis of their times as they have to remove large amounts of sand from the paddy fields that have been devastated as a result of the cyclone and no help in sight. The government has insisted that authorities monitor paddy fields identified for re-cultivation.
Peradeniya University Crop Science Senior Prof. Buddhi Marambe said, “One of the biggest issues is to remove sand” from the paddy fields. A total extent of 106, 293 hectares (H) of paddy lands has been destroyed by the floods which is 17 per cent of the total cultivated lands.
These figures were released by the Rice Research and Development Institute (RRDI) following an assessment carried out post Cyclone Ditwah at a meeting held on Thursday at the In-service Training Institute of the Department of Agriculture at Gannoruwa with the participation of the relevant institutions and Agriculture Minister K.D. Lalkantha.
The government has allocated Rs.150,000 per hectare for those paddy lands that have been destroyed. Approximately 10,000 H of paddy lands are unable to return to re-cultivation for this Maha season.
Although authorities during the meeting had been discussing about the availability of seed paddy for re-cultivation there was little talk on how the authorities could support the farmers in the removal of sand for land preparation.
It is crucial that re-cultivation happens and that farmers get back to sowing paddy because if the Maha yield should come down “drastically” it will be difficult to catch up on this lost yields during the Yala season, Prof. Marambe said.
It has been assessed that 90 per cent of the paddy lands destroyed have a chance for re-cultivation for the Maha season. But the removal of the sand from these paddy lands has become crucial in a bid to carry out the necessary land preparation for re-cultivation.
However, the government due to its inability to assist in engaging in removing this sand has requested farmers to carry out their own sand removal by finding the relevant service providers in a bid to do so.
The key rice growing areas in the country are Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Ampara and Kurunegala and these dry and intermediate areas were the most affected by the cyclone.
So far 249, 486 H of paddy lands were not cultivated and out of this 2000H were badly affected, it was noted.
Meanwhile the newly introduced government programme of generating high yields through rice cultivation using best practices under the “500 Yaya programme” it was found that about 5 per cent of the extent cultivated under this programme was damaged due to the floods.
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