Rains jolt Maha harvesting

The incessant rain once again after a lull in Ampara District has come as big blow to farmers who have just started their Maha paddy harvesting in certain areas.

According to the statistics of the Agriculture Department out of the 160,000 acres of lands brought under paddy cultivation during this Maha 2010/11 in the District more than 100,000 acres of paddy lands were under water during the recent floods damaging thousands of acres.

Although the rains ceased for a couple of days the farmers were not in a position to apply their fertilizer or chemicals owning to adverse weather conditions. However, the desperate farmers started their harvestings a few days ago and the pouring rains have once again comes as a big threat for the farmers as their harvested crops are now floating in the flood waters in paddy fields.

Agriculture Deputy Director P T Nimal Dayaratna told our correspondent that nearly 40,000 acres of paddy crops have been fully damaged and the farmers are in dilemma as to what to do next.