NAGAPATTINAM: Crop failure has claimed the life of one more farmer in Cauvery delta areas this year. On Monday night, 70-year-old Navaneedhan, a farmer of Keezhakaavaalakudi village near here died of a sudden cardiac arrest after sharing his agony with his family members that their 45-day-old ‘Samba’ paddy seedlings had failed for want of adequate water. With this farm distress-related deaths have gone up to five in the delta districts.
Police said on Tuesday that the farmer owns about two acres of land in the village, and the paddy seeds he sowed directly in his fields did not germinate.
Navaneethan had also raised ‘Samba’ seedlings at a farmland leased out byone Rajkumar by using water from a nearby pond, but that crop too had failed.
According to the farmer’s family members, for the last one week, Navaneedhan was in a ‘distressed state’. He swooned last night and was, with great difficulty, rushed to the Government headquarters hospital here, but doctors there declared him as ‘brought dead’.
