Dry spell hits tea production in Kangra

Tribune News Service

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, June 7

Continuing dry spell in the region has adversely impacted the sowing and yield of many crops in Kangra and Chamba districts. Since about 80 per cent area in Kangra and Chamba districts is rainfed, low rainfall in the region in the months of April and May has hit agriculture.

Ttea buds dried up early

There was hardly any tea available for harvesting as the buds dried up early. Farmers had to prune bushes of the plants. They are, however, sustaining the labour hoping

that the tea production will improve. —KG Butail, Tea grower, Palampur

The worst-affected are tea farmers of Kangra. KG Butail, a leading tea farmer from Palampur area and former president of the tea farmers association, said that production of tea depended on moist weather. There has been scanty rain in the region in the months of April and May and temperature has been above normal.

“There was hardly any tea available for harvesting in my tea garden in the last two months. The tea farmers had to prune bushes of tea plants. There was no harvest as buds dried up early. The farmers are, however, keeping and sustaining the labour that comes from other states and used for plucking in the hope that tea production would improve in the coming months”, he said.

Butail said that the dry spell in months of April and May would bring down production of tea in Kangra by about 30 per cent this year.

BK Sharma, a farmer from Chamba, said that sowing of maize, pulses and vegetables in the district has been delayed as there has hardly been any rains in the district in the last months of April and May. This would affect the production of pulses in tribal areas of Chamba district. He said that temperature higher than normal also brought down production apple in Bharmour tribal region of Chamba district.

VC of Palampur Agriculture University, Professor HK Chowdhary, when contacted, said that production of tea in Kangra district has been affected due to scanty rains and high temperatures in the months of April and May. For other crops such as pulses and vegetables time was still there for sowing. The regional rains are likely to arrive around June 15. The farmers can still sow pulses and vegetables after that and get good yield in the months of September and October. However, in case the rains get delayed even after June 15 it could be cause of concern for the farmers.

The potential of natural streams and rivers in the state for creating irrigation facilities for the farmers had remained untapped.

As very few irrigation schemes have been created in the state, about 80 per cent of agriculture remains rainfed.

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