homeagriculture NewsDrought damages nearly 60% of orange orchards in Vidarbha, forces farmers to cultivate other crops
Drought damages nearly 60% of orange orchards in Vidarbha, forces farmers to cultivate other crops
Amravati is one of the large orange growing districts in the Vidarbha region in Maharashtra. Changing weather patterns, scanty rainfall in last two years and prolonged high temperatures throughout the months of May and June have hit orange cultivators across Amravati and Nagpur districts.
Orange farmers in Amla village in Amravati are desperate. A severe drought since last year has spelt doom for orange cultivation in the region, with an alarming 60 percent of orange orchards going completely dry and farmers quitting orange cultivation in desperation.
Amravati is one of the large orange growing districts in the Vidarbha region in Maharashtra. Changing weather patterns, scanty rainfall in the last two years and prolonged high temperatures throughout the months of May and June have severely hit orange cultivators across Amravati and Nagpur districts.
“Only in this Amla village, where over 1500 acres of land are orange orchards, 60 percent have dried up,” said Sandeep Dhere, a farmer with 10 acres of orange orchards.
“I had two acres of orange farms. This January I destroyed all the trees. Oranges were burned down, the trees were just useful as fuel, nothing else,” said another farmer.
“Orange farmers are dying today but no authority is interested in helping us. The Pathalgaon lift canal project has been pending for years. It is just 5-8 kilomteres of work to connect our village to the canal but it hasn’t happened yet,” he added.
“There is also a restriction on digging borewells. We cannot dig beyond 200 feet and water table has depleted way below 600 feet. We make multiple efforts to dig wells but don’t find water in the farms.”
Amla village has not been declared drought hit yet but is in the ‘almost drought like’ list, meaning not all drought relief measures reach the farmers in the region. However, the village with a population of over 5,000 is surviving with just one borewell and one hand pump.
Some farmers with available cash have been bringing water in tankers from a distance of 5-6 kilometres, but say with tempartures hovering between 44 and 47 degree Celsius throughout the last two months, nothing has helped.
“I dug two bore-wells and didn’t find water. Then I spent over Rs 25,000 on fetching water from tankers for my 500 orange trees, but still could not save my orchard. It is all dead. I have lost all my trees,” said Mahul, a farmer.
Villagers say that with every third year being drought-hit and no help from authorities, the agricultural crisis has deepened and 13 farmers have committed suicide in the village.
With no water in wells, an evasive monsoon for the last two years and 60 percent of the crops damaged even traditional orange farmers are now shifting to less yielding crops like pulses or soybean.
Being entirely dependent on monsoons and failed by a pending lift canal irrigation project that hasn’t materialised on the ground, the lucrative cash crop of oranges has become a liability for the farmers.
First Published: Jun 25, 2019 3:38 PM IST
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