SAMBALPUR: Good rains as yet, the kharif season in Sambalpur district is likely to be affected due to shortage of paddy seed. As per the available data, paddy will be cultivated over 1,04,500 hectares during the forthcoming kharif season. It was only 99,533 hectares last year.
The Agriculture Department, to augment paddy production, had stressed cultivation of high yielding variety of paddy on a larger tract, but the nonavailability of seeds is delaying the sowing process particularly in the rainfed areas.
Deputy Director of Agriculture D C Pal said that about 14,000 quintals of paddy seed had been supplied to farmers till now. However, he had no explanation for the seed scarcity.
According to the farmers, although ‘Swarna’ variety of paddy seed is much in demand due to its floodresistant quality, the State Government is pushing other varieties which the farmers had never tested before.
Ever since collapse of the practice of storing seeds in villages across western Orissa, there has been heavy demand for the seed supplied by the State Government. "If the government is eager to boost production, it should take care to provide farmers the seed of their choice or else they would go back to good old tradition of storing seeds," said farmer leader Ashok Pradhan.