TOO LITTLE,TOO LATE

But agriculture officers of both talukas quickly remind you that looks can be deceptive. And that more than half of the crop yield here is going to be lost. It looks green,yes. But the yield will be poor, said Rajaram Gaikwad,agriculture officer,Sangamner the taluka of state agriculture minister Balasaheb Thorat. With 171 villages,Sangamner is also the biggest taluka in the district.

On his five-acre farm,Noor Mohammed Pathan of Karule village grows bajra and onions. By now,he said,the bajra crop should have grown up to his height. It has stopped at barely half a foot. The tillering has been poor. Instead of four,most plants have sprouted just one shoot; the grain size is small too. The height of the crop is irregular, Pathan said.

Bajra is the chief kharif crop in Sangamner and is sown in 40,500 hectares,followed by maize in 7,800 hectares. There are some small pockets of moong and udid as well.

For a month,we did not receive any rain; farmers had given up all hopes of a good yield. Rainfall in the last three days have given them some relief,but they will still lose around 50 per cent of the yield. Some crop can be saved only if it rains continuously for a week or 10 days. Otherwise,the losses will be extensive, agriculture officer Gaikwad said.

Last year,the kharif crop was lost. The entire area was converted into rabi with the sowing of jowar in August and September. That was because the monsoon was late and scanty in July but at least it was good in August and September, he added.

Although Pathan is keen to sow jowar,Gaikwad is not very optimistic.

Kharif is still standing,when will they sow the jowar crop? It was raining around this time last year when they sowed jowar. This time its neither here,nor there, he said.

Till August 20,Sangamner had received 94 mm of rainfall. In the next five days,the taluka added another100 mm. The crucial period of the kharif season had ,however,gone dry. Even so far,the taluka has received only around 35 per cent rainfall of the normal rainfall the average normal rainfall for Sangamner is around 550 mm.

On an average,this happens twice in five years,said Gaikwad.

In 2005-06 and 2006-07,farmers got good rainfall,while 2007-08 has been the best so far but 2003-04 and 2004-05 were drought years with poor yields. While 2008-09 was erratic and had poor rainfall till July,the monsoon was good enough in August. The district has around six dams,but it cannot depend much on the reservoir water as they are only around 35 per cent full.

In the adjoining Sinnar,which falls in Nashik district,it is a similar scenario.

Madhukar Mungshe of Nandur Shingote village gave up weeding his land when it stopped raining in late July. It would have been a waste of money, he said. The soyabean crop has begun sprouting purple flowers only now late by a month. If it rains,there might be some yield, he said.

The sown area for soyabean in Sinnar is 17,500 hectares; for bajra it is 30,000 hectares. Cooperative banks give farmers Rs 2,800 per acre in loan for bajra, but no loan is available for soyabean as it is still a relatively new crop,farmers said.

After a month-long dry spell,Sinnar has received 286 mm rainfall till now when the normal rainfall ought to have crossed 550 mm. Till August 20,it had received only 116 mm.

Half of the soyabean crop was sowed in May after the first showers; the rest of it was sown in late July- early august. The late sowing is lost entirely but farmers might still get some yield from the early soyabean crop, said Hemant Kale,taluka agriculture officer of Sinnar.

Although the state department has issued advisories for protected irrigation during the flowering period,farmers have not been able to follow these guidelines. This is because out of the 1.27 crore hectares of kharif,the state has only around 16 per cent of dam-irrigated land; the rest is dry land. Only a few parts of Sinnar get dam water and the wells are all dry. Where is the question of protected irrigation? asked Kale.