Punjab floods threaten to devastate India’s rice harvest
Ration shops in Telangana face outrage as cardholders receive worm-infested and wet rice, with stocks worth crores spoiled due to negligence. Old coarse rice left for months contaminated new superfine rice, worsened by rains and damp storage. Dealers demand immediate government action, while officials promise to review damaged stock removal.
Floods caused by torrential monsoon rains have submerged swathes of agricultural land in northern India, threatening to ruin the standing rice crop and undermine the country’s food security.
The flooding in Punjab, one of the country’s chief producers of grains like rice and wheat, has killed at least 30 people and affected nearly 354,000 with livestock and property losses, state officials said.
Floodwaters have inundated around 150,000 hectares of farmland, causing extensive losses.
The floods are the worst that Punjab, home to over 30 million people, has seen since 1988 and the state government has declared all 23 districts as affected by the disaster.
The chief minister has promised compensation to the affected farmers. “Today, I conducted a tour of the flood-affected areas in village Gatti Rajo of Ferozepur district by boat to assess the situation,” Bhagwant Mann said.
“Appropriate compensation will be provided for all kinds of losses suffered by people due to the floods, and in the future, new and effective methods will be explored to deal with such situations.”
His administration has also urged the federal government to increase compensation for losses caused by natural disasters like the ongoing floods.
As incessant rainfall continued to threaten life and property this week, rescue teams, backed by the army and disaster response services, evacuated thousands of people from their homes. Authorities also closed some schools and offices across Punjab and other northern Indian states on Tuesday.
Farmers told The Independent that basmati rice – the fragrant pearl variety of rice that was due to be harvested in a month – was completely damaged by the floodwaters.
“More than a hundred villages of rural Punjab are completely submerged and at least 300,000 acres of agricultural land is damaged,” Ramindra Singh Patiala, a farmer union leader in Punjab, said.
Punjab could witness a 20-25 per cent decline in basmati rice production this year as almost a quarter of the crop was already damaged beyond recovery, the Indian Rice Exporter’s Federation said.
The state accounted for over 40 per cent of India’s basmati rice export of 6.07 million tonnes last year, it added.
Mr Patiala said many farmers would have to “completely shelve their produce and move to the next crop, missing out completely on one season’s worth of earnings from farming”. Hundreds of them had also lost their cattle to the floods, he added, making their situation even worse.
Since Punjab is downstream from Himalayan states like Himachal Pradesh which are witnessing heavy rains as well, the flooding situation is likely to worsen in the coming days.
“Per farmer, the government should look to offer at least Rs 100,000 of compensation to allow them to survive this tragedy,” Mr Patiala said.
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Source : Ukr Agro Consult
