PADDY SEED SHORTAGE HITS NUAPADA FARMERS

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the pioneer

PADDY SEED SHORTAGE HITS NUAPADA FARMERS

Thursday, 20 June 2013 | AJIT PANDA | NUAPADA | in Bhubaneswar




Buti Majhi is a marginal farmer of Khariar block in Nuapada district having one and a half acres of land. He had cultivated 1,001 variety of high yielding paddy last year. The yield was less because the seed was not good. He had been storing seeds of high yielding varieties for last four years and the seeds had lost their potential.

"The seeds had been provided by the Government. Considering their low quality, I had to change them every three years," he says. But, seed is not sufficiently available this year. 

Sanjay Tiwari, a big farmer of the block, has stored seed from last year's crop. "This is my fourth year, but I have no other option," says Sanjay. Ghanashyam Bhitria has exchanged his Swarna variety of paddy with another farmer for the same variety.
The farmers of Nuapada district are facing shortage of paddy seed this year. When the total requirement of paddy seed for the district is 37,505 quintals, the procurement till now is about 16,916.20 quintals, which is only 45 per cent of the total requirement. Nuapada block has received the highest amount that is 6263.50 quintals, while Sinapali block got 5405.80 quintals, Komna 2583.70 quintals and Boden received 1454.40 quintals. Khariar block received the lowest, 1208.80 quintals, when the requirement was more than 7,000 quintals. About 71 per cent of the procurement has been done by the private dealers, 18 per cent by the agriculture department under Bring Green Revolution in Eastern India (BGREI) programme and 11 per cent by the primary agriculture cooperative societies.
"We hope that the total procurement of paddy seed will be about 25,000 quintals this year till the end of this month," says the Deputy Director of Agriculture (DDA), Nuapada. "We are trying our best to improve the seed replacement rate (SRR) during this Kharif season up to 74 per cent, which was 38 per cent last Kharif," added the DDA.
There is no answer to the question, how this target could be achieved, when the agriculture department does not hope to procure more than 25,000 quintals. However, the effort of the agriculture department is praiseworthy if the rate of increase in the SRR in last 6 years is to be considered. Starting from 10 per cent of SRR in 2006, the replacement rate has reached up to 38 per cent in 2012.
Khirasindhu Sagaria of Kusmal village in Khariar block has not replaced his traditional seeds. He continues to cultivate traditionally long duration Jhuli, Asamchudi in his two and a half acres of low land and medium duration Kusma and Nenka in his medium lands. "I will not replace my seed. I don't want to be dependent on the seed companies," asserts Khirasindhu, who never uses any chemical fertilizer or pesticide in his land. "Only five to ten per cent of the farmers in the district are using local traditional seeds. The farmers who are not getting fresh high yielding varieties are continuing with their previous year's seeds," says the DDA. The farmers have also other options like exchanging of seeds. If the seeds are more than 3 years' old, they are exchanged for previous year's seeds available with other farmers. The preference of the farmers in the district is more for Swarna variety followed by 1001 and 1010 varieties. These varieties are not available in the market sufficiently because the sale centres have not procured as per the requirement of the farmers. The requirement of Swarna is 7,832 quintal, 1001 7,673 quintals and 1010 4,800 quintals.
Only about 5,087 quintals of Swarna, 4,553 quintals of 1001 and 1,108 quintals of 1010 variety have been procured.
"We are facing a lot of troubles due to these private traders' monopoly," says Sanjay. "Things were better, when the Government was supplying seeds. The Government should take the responsibility again," he adds. "Seeds are available now to the people of interior villages due to decentralized distribution, which was not possible earlier, when the department was doing it," said the DDA.
However, it is also reported, the dealers instead of selling seeds to the local farmers, are sending that to Chhatishgarh, because they are getting higher price there. "There is no check to the corruption by the dealers," says Youth Congress president Adhiraj Panigrahi.

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