After two years of uncertainty, 64-year-old P.K. Sadhanandan, a progressive paddy farmer under the Kattoor Thekkumpadam Koottu Krishi Sangam in Thrissur, is now a relived ryot ahead of the harvest of this year’s crop, thanks to the general elections scheduled for April 26 in Kerala. A small-scale farmer who cultivates paddy on three acres is now credited a tranche of ₹40,000 twice in two back-to-back instalments in the last two months by the Agriculture Insurance Company, which provides insurance protection to the farmers against adverse weather conditions under the Weather-Based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS).
His entire crop, nearing harvest in the 2021 Rabi season, was fully submerged in floodwater after a severe cyclonic storm, Asani, that took shape in the North Indian Ocean, triggered unseasonal torrential rain in Kerala during the first of May 2022, inflicting heavy losses to thousands of farmers readying for their harvest.
