Crops drown; Balasore farmers fear massive loss

BALASORE: Gagan Behera, a farmer from Kesharpur village in Balasore district, has been spending sleepless nights for the last one week. The flood in the Budhabalanga has submerged his three acres of agricultural field and he has no other source to feed his six-member family.This is the second time Behera is facing the nature’s wrath this year. While his crops were first damaged due to lack of timely rain, this time his standing paddy crops have come under flood water. He was to harvest his crops within four months.“If the water does not recede in a day or two, all the plants will rot.I am apprehensive of getting just half the yield,” he said.Behera’s is not the lone case in this coastal district.Thousands of farmers in Sadar, Remuna, Basta, Khaira, Bahanaga, Bhogarai and Jaleswar have been affected.In Bhadrak district, farmers in Dhamnagar and Bhandaripokhari blocks have been hit. People in the northern parts of Balasore have so far witnessed three consecutive floods this year.They have suffered a huge financial loss as their standing crops, shrimp and fresh (native) fish enclosures were inundated by flood water.Though the official estimate is underway, sources said paddy crops in nearly 50,000 acres in both the districts have been submerged in the flood water.District Agriculture Officer (DAO) Prasanta Kumar Behera, who toured a some villages of the floodhit Remuna, Sadar and Basta blocks of Balasore district, said there would be at least 50 per cent crop loss this year.He said paddy crops in nearly 13,842 hectares (ha) in 286 villages under 30 panchayats of three blocks are submerged.While crops in 117 villages in Sadar have been affected, it is 144 villages in Basta followed by 25 in Remuna, he added.Farmers fear total crop loss if the water does not recede in a day or two.“The paddy saplings will rot under water if the flood water is not let out into the sea. We do not even have seeds to cultivate again,” said Shankarshan Das, a farmer.Officials, however, said it is too early to estimate total crop loss.