Floods a blessing in disguise for paddy nursery growers

: Floods and heavy rains in Haryana has come as a blessing in disguise for the paddy nursery growers, who are earning huge profits by selling saplings at arbitrary prices to hapless farmers trying to recover from the loss of their crop due to the deluge.

Reports collected from the flood-affected areas of northern districts reveal that the nursery growers are selling paddy saplings at ₹1,500 per marla to ₹5,000 per marla (depending on the variety) instead of the usual price of around ₹800 per marla and earning a profit of ₹3 lakh to ₹5 lakh from one acre within a period of one month.

Farmers said that the paddy nursery was not available as most of the nursery farms are out of stock leading to rise in prices.

“We had two acres under paddy nursery ready when the floods were reported in most parts of Haryana. That time, the prices were around ₹1,000 per marla, but soon after the farmers started approaching us, we increased the prices and sold one marla of early maturing PR 126 and Pusa 1509 upto ₹4,700,” said a nursery grower from Indri in Karnal, pleading anonymity.

Another paddy nursery grower Vinod Kumar of Indri said that after selling out the entire nursery of three acres or 480 marlas, they have resown 400 marlas of nursery earlier this month and this will be getting ready for the next four-five days. However, the rates have reduced to around ₹1,800 per marla due to a dip in demand as farmers in Haryana have already resown paddy. Kumar said that there is a possibility that farmers from Punjab may come to buy paddy nurseries.

However, the verification to ascertain crop damage in the flood-affected districts is going on, but the tentative figures of the agriculture department revealed 50 to 100% loss to around one lakh acres of paddy in Kurukshetra, Karnal, Yamunanagar and Kaithal districts.

The farmers who had lost their crops were running from pillar to post to get paddy nursery for re-sowing which cost them around ₹12,000 per acre.

“The rain had damaged four acres of my crop and I had bought nursery of two marlas at ₹4,700 per marla for resowing besides ₹4,000 per acre for transplantation and ₹2,000 per acre for puddling,” said Kuldeep Singh, a farmer of Radaur in Yamunanagar.

Farmers are pinning hope on the government to get compensation to mitigate the expenses as chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar had announced that the government will also compensate the farmers for replantation.