Heavy rain, winds cause widespread damage to crops in Ernakulam

Tapioca, banana, rubber and coconut affected

Standing crops, including banana, tapioca, paddy, and cowpea are among the worst hit by the heavy rain and winds that battered the district last week and early Sunday. According to a tentative estimate, the farming sector has lost about ₹40 crore. Agriculture department sources said that around 3,100 farmers had lost crops in about 233 hectares. Flooding hit mostly tapioca cultivation while heavy winds uprooted banana plants and long-term crops like rubber, nutmeg and coconut. Bad weather conditions apart, pineapple farmers have said they are through a bitter harvest with the lockdown. They are sitting on a harvest of 5,000 tonnes of ripe fruits, unable to sell the fruits because of the fresh restrictions imposed to contain COVID-19 as Ernakulam district went into triple lockdown, sources in the Pineapple Growers’' Association Keralam said. A farmer at Bethanippadi, Kolathuruth in Valakom panchayat near Muvattupuzha said he was unable to sell more than a tonne of golden melon after he harvested the crop as the fields started being flooded in heavy rain. P.A. Kunjunju also said that there would be another tonne of the crop ready to be harvested. “But there is no hope of selling the golden melon because of the lockdown”, he said. He said he had been distributing the harvest free to community kitchens and people, who wanted them.