Persistent drought leaves Terai farmers worried

By Our Correspondent Sarlahi, Aug. 20: A long period of drought has left farmers in Terai districts, including Sarlahi, worried about the bleak harvests.

Due to the lack of irrigation, the rice plants have started drying up.

As there is no rainfall, the farmers are irrigating their lands using diesel-powered pump sets, buying the fuel at a whopping cost. Rajendra Sah, a farmer of Chandranagar Rural Municipality-2, Babarganj, complained that he had to irrigate his paddy field by spending Rs. 173.50 per litre of diesel.

Sah said that since there was not enough rain this year, they had to use pump sets to plant and irrigate the paddy after planting.

"June and July passed without rain, the situation is still the same in August. Neither the rain helped the farmers nor the government, there is no chemical fertiliser to be applied even after the irrigation using the pump sets."

In the district, the farmers of Chandranagar, Haripurwa, Brahmapuri, Parsa, Kabilasi and other municipalities irrigate the paddy crop using pump sets.

Dozens of pump sets are operating to irrigate paddy crops from the highways of Lalbandi to Ishwarpur municipality. 

The rice crops planted by most of the farmers from the east-west highway to the north are wilting. As the water level is very low, pump sets do not operate in the northern part.

In the northern part, the fields of some farmers have access to irrigation by cannel, but because the water in the river has decreased, farmers are struggling to get the water.

Kamal Dev Prasad Kushwaha, chief of Agricultural Knowledge Centre, Malangawa, said that fields are cracked and the rice crops have shriveled due to persistent drought.

The paddy plantation has been completed in around 90 per cent of the fields in the district.  Paddy is cultivated on 46,500 hectares of land in Sarlahi.

"All the farmers are worried as their paddy fields are dry," Kushwaha said, "If there is no rain immediately, it seems that there will be a big loss in the paddy cultivation, this may lead to a decline in production."