Timely Monsoon 2020 Helped Bihar Farmers to Increase Paddy Cultivation

Monsoon in Bihar has arrived timely after a decade, which is a hopeful sign for farmers who already faced hit due to the lockdown measures and COVID-19 effects on the farming industry. Finding migrants for farm work became hard due to the lockdown. Bihar is heavily dependent on monsoon rains for Kharif crops like paddy, which is a water-intensive crop. Monsoon reached Bihar on June 13, 2020, and capital city Patna on June 20, 2020. This timely monsoon became a hope for farmers.

“I am not alone, nearby villages have hundreds of farmers who have a reason to be happy as the monsoon reach state timely amid the COVID-19 crisis,” said Shambhu Nath Singh, to a farmer who has reason to be happy due to timely arrival of monsoon.

This year’s good monsoon is helping farmers to sow seeds on time and prepare for seedling, followed by timely transplantation. This timely flow is important for a good harvest.

This year the sowing process has begun on large scales, last year 53,000 hectares of paddy was sown last year, while this year sowing happened in 84,000 hectares. The state target of paddy cultivation is 3.3 million hectares for this year’s Kharif season.

In Bihar sowing start during Adra Nakshatra after Rohini Nakshatra, which comes after June 20, however, this year farmers didn’t wait for Adra Nakshatra as pre-monsoon rains and timely monsoon rains motivated them to sow early.

Pre-monsoon rains in the state started early June and gave necessary moisture to fields. Unlike in the past, when fields were dry adding to its timely monsoon helped to begun sowing a week early. Along with it, paddy monsoon will help other Kharif crop maize. It is targeted to be cultivated in 4.5 lakh hectares while pulses to be cultivated in 1.5 lakh hectares.