Rising heat index and near empty dams and rivers raise the spectre of area under paddy, vegetables, banana and spice crops among others drying up, turning farmers in Kerala into an extremely worried lot thinking about life after Onam.
“The auspicious month of Chingam and the iconic Onam have meant little for most farmers, who even observed a fast on the first day of Chingam. It has been a upward struggle as farmers face one of the most severe tests of their lives. Payment for procured paddy has just begun to trickle in. The farming sector itself is in big trouble,” said Muthalamthode Mani, paddy farmer in Palakkad.
Thousands of farmers like him worry that about half their cultivation will fall prey to the weather condition with dams going empty due to poor monsoon. Their worries stem from the fact that Kerala as a whole received nearly 50% less rain than the normal 1,712 mm between June 1 and August 28.
