With monsoon getting delayed farmers in Orissa are offering all kinds of rituals to appease the rain God. Farmers are organising pujas, even marriage of frogs, to bring in rain.
As 73 % of the total 60.38 lakh hectare cultivable land in the state is high-land and depends on rain, farmers are panicking. Delay in monsoon may spell disaster. Monsoon usually arrives in Orissa on 9th or 10th June. But, now it is much delayed. The Bhubaneswar meteorological office predicts that it will take another couple of days for the monsoon to hit the Orissa coast.
?There is little chance of revival of the monsoon during the next three days. But, there after the monsoon that has been held up may show signs of revival?, says Sarat Chandra Sahu, Director, Meteorological Centre, Bhubaneswar. ?It need some surge like low pressure that can help the rains to arrive?, he says, and adds, ?Such a trend had been witnessed on several occasions in the past.?
Agriculture is the mainstay of Orissa?s economy providing livelihood support to about 70% of the population. The sector?s contribution is 20.09% to the Net Domestic Product of the State(NDPS). Agriculture and allied sector has contributed Rs26, 413 crore to the Gross State Domestic Products (GSDP) registering a growth rate of 3.13% in 2008-09 as against Rs25, 613 crore and growth rate of 14.75% in 2007-08.
Delay in monsoon will definitely have adverse impact on the prospects of paddy crop in up-land and medium land which mostly depend on rain. Although there were signs of early onset of south-west monsoon, they weakened after ?Aila? sucked its moisture content. The state agriculture Director, Dr Arabinda Padhi, is also closely watching the movement of the monsoon. ?The situation will be critical if the monsoon fails to arrive by last week of June?, he says. The paddy nurseries are ready to support the transplantation of paddy.
The loss could be recovered if the state gets showers by next week, he adds. Looking at the trend of the monsoon, the state agriculture department has worked out a contingency plan to save the farmers. The directorate of agriculture has advised the farmers to go for short and medium duration variety of paddy in this situation and sow Khandagiri, Udayagiri, Lalata, Kalinga-3, Navin variety in the rain-fed areas.
The state government has projected a record food grain production of 10 million tonne during 2009-10. The Kharif rice production has been pegged at 80 lakh tones as against 68.38 lakh tones last year. It has estimated that paddy cultivation will be taken up on 37 lakh hectares this Kharif.
The delayed monsoon is likely to throw the target into haywire. As 50% of the paddy production comes from the high-land cultivation, the prolonged dry condition may hit the productivity of these lands.
?It is very difficult to predict at this point of time whether we will be able to achieve the target or not?, admits Dr Padhi. According to him, more than the timing of the monsoon it is the evenly distribution of the rainfall which is important for the paddy. Orissa which usually gets an average rainfall of 1452 millimetre in a year rarely gets evenly distribution of rainfall.
Now with the uncertainty of the monsoon, the state?s economy is under tremendous stress.