VIJAYAWADA: Untimely rainfall damaged agriculture and horticulture crops in about 7,000 hectares across Andhra Pradesh in recent days.
Based on a preliminary assessment, agriculture crops like paddy and maize suffered damage in about 5,000 hectares in areas like Nandyal in Rayalaseema, East Godavari, Konaseema and Krishna districts. Horticulture crops like banana, mango etc suffered in about 2,000 hectares in several districts.
The farmers are hopeful they can save the crops once the rainfall stops.
As IMD warns heavy rainfall is likely in several parts of AP in the next two days with wind speeding gusting up to 40 to 50kmph, the farmers are a worried about further damage.
The agriculture department has started enumeration of crop damage and will come up with a preliminary assessment by Tuesday. The rainfall may not continue for a long time and farmers can save their lodged crops once the day temperature starts rising in the hot summer in May, officials said.
Moreover, farmers say that they have stocked harvested paddy in the fields for procurement by the state government, but the sudden rainfall drenched them. Some farmers could cover them from getting drenched in the rainfall.
They allege that since there was some delay in paddy procurement in some areas through RBKs, this has resulted in a drenching of the stocked paddy. They appeal to the state government to come to their rescue by purchasing paddy even if it contains some moisture beyond permissible limits by giving them some relaxation.
On the other hand, horticulture crops mainly banana, mango, papaya, acid lime, sweet orange etc suffered damage and the authorities have come up with a preliminary assessment of crop damages in about 1,217 hectares in 11 districts, which affected 1,396 farmers, and proposed an input subsidy of Rs 288 lakh.
An agriculture official said, “Once the rainfall stops in the next three to four days and day temperature rises, the farmers can save the lodged crops as there are no issues of inundation of fields so far.”
On the other hand, the state government maintains that it has released an input subsidy of Rs 1,911.81 crore to benefit 22.22 lakh farmers as they suffered crop damage or loss in 30.86 lakh acres from 2019-20 to 2022-23 under the influence of natural calamities in the state.
