Farmers’ plea to survey damaged paddy crop fields in Madurai district

Farmers urge district administration to survey damaged paddy fields due to climate change, demand compensation and MGNREGA workers.

Farmers made a plea to the district administration to conduct a survey to ascertain paddy fields which have suffered extensive damage due to climate change, at a farmers’ grievance meeting here on Friday. 

N.S. Parthasarathy, a farmer from Vadipatti and a member of Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, said that unlike previous years, the current year’s productivity was affected due to various reasons like unseasonal rainfall and labour shortage.  

While the months of January and February were when most of the paddy crops in the district would be harvested, witnessing the immature state of the paddy grains, many farmers have left the grown crops to remain on the field itself, he added.  

Also, due to labour shortage, farm owners had to use amateur farm workers for the nursing process, Mr. Parthasarathy said.  

“Due to the unskilled labour work, the crops have grown in close distance without the required spacing. As this led to poor ventilation and lack of sunlight, pest attack was also witnessed in many farms,” he noted.  

Alleging the official’s reluctance and carelessness in surveying the paddy fields, Mr. Parthasarathy said that many farmers were waiting for any sort of compensation to manage the loss they have faced.  

He also requested the Collector to deploy the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Acts (MGNREGA) workers for agricultural works.