Wheat blast: State govt gives seeds for alternate farming

Kolkata: The state Agriculture department has distributed seeds among farmers for alternate farming in areas of Nadia and Murshidabad which were hit by wheat blast disease.

Seeds were also distributed among farmers in five districts bordering Bangladesh.

It may be mentioned that the wheat blast disease had hit around 1,000-hectare of agricultural land in Nadia and Murshidabad districts in 2017 and cultivation of wheat was stopped for the next two years to check the spread of the disease.

In such a situation, the state government has taken all necessary steps to support the farmers in those area. The state government has taken initiatives so that farmers could carry out cultivation of other crops for livelihood as wheat cultivation is not possible.

The state government has distributed seeds free of cost among farmers for cultivation of pulses and mustard in these areas.

"The target was not only to distribute seeds among farmers but to do the same on time so that they can make proper use of them," said state Agriculture minister Asish Banerjee adding that as per our target the work of seed distribution has been done on time.

Banerjee will be holding a meeting on November 12 in this connection. He has already discussed the issue during his visit to Murshidabad for a meeting in connection with the unusual rainfall in certain parts of the district.

With timely distribution of seeds, farmers will be immensely benefitted as they can sow the same at the right time. Besides Nadia and Murshidabad, seeds were also distributed among farmers in the bordering areas of five other districts including Malda and North 24-Parganas.

The officials of the state Agriculture department are keeping a watch at the situation and extending all support to the farmers in the area as and when required for cultivation of alternate crops. It may be recalled that the state government also took initiative to set up 200 pulse processing mills in Nadia and Murshidabad so that farmers did not have to worry to get their crops processed elsewhere.

The production of pulses has gone up in the area as cultivation of alternate crops was encouraged after wheat blast. As a result, setting up of pulse processing units helped the farmers immensely.

The state government had also taken the initiative to distribute atta in the two districts as there was no cultivation of wheat due to the disease in June.