Standing crops in hundreds of acres in Konaseema damaged. A good number of farmers opted for papaya as an inter-crop with coconut by investing about Rs. 50,000 per acre.

The hopes of horticulture farmers from this greenish village on the banks of Godavari were dampened by floods. At a time when the crops are about to yield, the sudden rise in the Godavari has played the spoilsport.

The farmers, who were in a cheerful mood till three days ago, are calculating their losses by standing in knee-deep water on Wednesday. Even as the flood is receding, the damage has already been done to the standing crops of banana, sweet orange, papaya, betel leaf and vegetables spread in hundreds of acres.

A good number of farmers opted for papaya as an inter-crop with coconut by investing about Rs. 50,000 per acre. When the fruit was in ripening stage, entire gardens came under sheets of water. “Now, the yield is hopeless. We can’t count on any yield and the entire investment turned into mere waste,” said Kola Edukondalu, who cultivated papaya in two acres in Ainavilli Lanka. “You know the cost of seed? It is Rs. 7,000 per 100 grams and we bought it from Bangalore,” he says while calculating other investments such as labour, fertilizer and pesticide.

Village maroonedThe village is under a sheet of water and boats are being used for transportation. People residing in the low-lying areas are spending their second day in the relief camps.

Sweet orange and betel were cultivated in huge extents in the vicinity and the two crops too were at the yielding stage. “It will take another two to three days for the floodwater to recede from the farms and fields. By that time, sweet orange attracts bugs and the betel leaf will be completely damaged,” says Salivahana, a farmer from Ainavilli Lanka.

Vegetables sown in hundreds of acres in the abutting Kotipalli Baga village are marooned and the farmers lost all the hopes of minimum returns. “Though coconut growers are the happiest lot as the sand deposits will make the groves more fertile, the horticulture and vegetable farmers are a worried lot. Most of them are tenant farmers and the loss is irrecoverable for them,” M.V. Subba Rao, who owns a coconut grove in the village, said.

Source - http://www.thehindu.com/