Rains wash away months of horti farmers' labour in Karnataka

The unseasonal rains in the months of October and November have damaged horticultural crops cultivated on more than 1.5 lakh hectares of land in various parts of the state, according to data from the Horticulture department.

According to senior officials in the department, the perished crops comprise vegetables, fruits, flowers and plantation crops.

A senior official told DH that out of the total 1,56,257 hectares of horticultural crop loss, Ballari district was the worst hit with various types of standing crop on 42,643 hectares of land being wiped out.

"After Ballari, districts such as Gadag (23,257 hectares), Dharwad (14,735 hectares) and Chikkamagaluru (12,272 hectares) incurred huge losses. Similarly, Bagalkot and Kolar districts lost ready-to-harvest crops on 9,998 and 7,196 hectares, respectively," the official said.

The officer explained that among vegetables, chillies are the worst-hit crop due to two months of rains.

"Farmers had cultivated chillies on 60,000 hectares of land in various districts. This is followed by onions grown on 31,868 hectares. Tomatoes, the prices of which have recently been on a roller-coaster, were lost on 7,754 hectares and potatoes on 3,577 hectares," explained a deputy director of horticulture.

"While there are no reports of damage to grapes in and around Bengaluru, districts such as Bagalkot, Vijayapura and Belagavi have suffered a majority of the losses." Grapes cultivated on a total of 7,666 hectares of land have been damaged.

This apart, 930 hectares of banana have been destroyed.

The flower growers, too, have suffered losses with rains damaging the crops on 2,245 hectares.

Further, plantation crops including 11,559 hectares of pepper, 7,714 hectares of arecanut and 1,994 hectares of ginger have also been destroyed due to the heavy showers.

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