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Bardhaman
Dot Com News Bureau
Burdwan, 4 June 04 :
After facing a massive loss, district's sunflower farmers are in panic. They have been thrown in this situation only due to indiscretion of some district agricultural officer, claimed a professor of Burdwan
university. Last evening, Suren Hembram, secretary of Burdwan Zila Parishad's agriculture & irrigation committee
sent a letter to Kamal Guha, the state minister of agriculture. In his letter
Hembram strongly condemned the role of agriculture department and
have claimed compensation for the local farmers. He also send a
copy of the letter to the
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finance minister of the state, Dr. Ashim
Dasgupta.
The farmers of the district was inspired by the state government
agricultural department to farm sunflower oilseeds as an
alternative to paddy. The seeds supplied by the department yielded
healthy plants & flowers but eventually almost no seed was
found in the flower. This resulted in huge financial loss for the
farmer. In some places of the district, farmers didn't bother to
cut the crop & burnt it in the fields out of anguish. The
farmers informed that the state agricultural department supplied
them with a newer |
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variety of the seed without
proper verification
of its quality. Incidentally some officials of the department had
confessed their `lack of knowledge' regarding the seeds imported
from Maharastra. In some parts of the Malda district, farmers have
successfully farmed the crop. This segment of the farmers had
planted the crop in early December unlike the major part of their
counterparts who planted it in late Feb-Mar as suggested by the
agricultural department. Later it was learnt that the species of
the seed grow at its optimum during the winter.
Hembram also requested the agricultural minister to identify the officials who served this unsubstantial seeds to the
farmers, and collect compensation from those suppliers for indemnify the
farmers. Suren Hembram told bardhaman.com that, "initially we got very good result from
these seeds with flourishing sunflowers & the farming was
satisfactory everywhere, but at the time of cutting the crops farmers
didn't found almost any seed within the flower. The farmers from
Bhater, Aushgram-2, Khondoghosh blocks
came to me and informed me about their loss earlier. I personally collected those sunflower from Aushgram Block-2
& Katwa. The district agricultural department distributed sunflower seeds among 4/5 farmers from each blocks of the district. And most of those seeds are
non-productive. District agricultural officer Aswani Kumar Pari told
bardhaman.com, "although this year sunflower was farmed at
115.66 hectors in the district, but the farmers didn't get
satisfactory results. The yield was much less than the expected
2-3 quintals per bigha." He also said, "we can't say why
such consequence took place. An expert team have already visited
the district & we can't comment before the report is
submitted."
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