“The climate crisis is now turning extremely severe in Kerala. Contrary to the last four years, when the state witnessed high-intensity rains during the Southwest Monsoon, resulting in many floods and landslides, now there are ominous signs of a fast-approaching drought,” said P Abubacker, president of the Ummini Padasekhara Samithy, a forum of rice growers in the Ummini region of the Palakkad district.
“Palakkad is the traditional rice bowl for the rest of Kerala. We, the farmers here, have almost abandoned paddy’s first crop season cultivation due to the lack of rains and escalating heat levels. Paddy seedlings are wilting, and we have no means to recover from the crisis now,” he added.
Known as the gateway of monsoon in the country, Kerala is now staring at the worst drought in the past few years, having recorded a 44 percent deficit in seasonal rainfall. Reports from across the state indicate the situation is headed for the worse.
In the Udumbanchola taluk in the high ranges of the Idukki district, pepper farmers are also worried. The lack of rains has badly affected the flowering of pepper vines in the region, where the deficit this year has been estimated at 61 percent.
In the absence of rain, pepper vines lack new sprouts. In Kerala, Wayanad and Idukki are the major pepper growing areas, and the farmers feel production would be dismal this time because of the climate change-induced change in rain patterns.
Across the state, insecurity is heavy among the growers of cardamom, ginger, coffee and other cash crops as well.
“The heat now feels unprecedented compared with the last 10 years. Cultivation is badly affected as plants are wilting under the scorching sun,” said Echome Gopi, a small-scale farmer of Kalpetta in the Wayanad district.
>The east-flowing Kabini River remains almost dried up in the Pulpally and Mullankolli panchayats of Wayanad. Kabini is the major feeder of South India’s inter-state river Cauvery.
waterKerala is now facing an unprecedented kind of worsening climatic situation.
In the low-lying Kuttanad region of the Alappuzha district, the lack of rain poses a major threat to rice cultivation, a situation exacerbated by the high intrusion of saline water from the sea.
In Kuttanad, the residents are forced to depend on the contaminated water in the surrounding backwater region for their domestic needs. They must wait for government boats to meet the safe drinking water sources demand.
In the tribal heartland of Attappad, the scarcity of drinking water is acute. Wells and ponds have dried up in the area, where groundwater has been depleted to alarming levels.
In the Eruthempathy, Vadakarapathy, and Kozhinjampara panchayats in Palakkad, residents have to wait for the water-carrying trucks that arrive thrice a week.
“We have had only two-three spells of rain since January. This is the time to sow seeds, but there is no water. We are also going to face a severe drinking water crisis. The agriculture office gave us vegetable seeds for the Onam market, but we could not do anything,” lamented SP Venkatachalam, a tribal farmer from Santhanpara in Idukki.
KP Rajappan Nair, another farmer from Pooppara in Idukki, echoed his concerns. “This year, agriculture will be a complete loss due to the unavailability of water. The Poopara area is well known for its agriculture, but this Onam, we will not have any of our products in the market,” Nair said.
Across the state, the heat level has also started rising due to the absence of rain. On Saturday, the Integrated Rural Technology Centre at Palakkad recorded 32.3 degrees Celsius as the daytime temperature. Normally, it is below 28 in August and September.
In the four months of Southwest monsoon, two months are already over, and experts say a drought that may spread over at least four months is now on the cards.
This contradicts the earlier forecast of above-normal rainfall issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) for the southern peninsula.
>The scarcity of rains has also evoked larger concerns in the power sector. As per figures available on 20 August, only 36 percent of water remains in the reservoirs managed by the state electricity board.
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