Puttur: Crop Disease Kills Hopes of Areca Planters

Arun Uppinangady
Daijiworld Media Network – Puttur (RD)
 
Puttur, Sep 18: The areca planters who were hopeful of a bumper crop this year have been forced to bear the consequences of a disease that has affected their plantations. The incessant rains and sub-standard quality of copper sulphate are contributing factors for aggravating the rotting disease. It would not only burn the fingers of areca planters this season, but is likely to ruin their future too. 
 
The areca planters were using bodo mixture of copper sulphate and lime to keep the disease at bay, by sprinkling it on crop. However, majority of areca planters say that it is not possible for everyone during this season to sprinkle bodo mixture, due to incessant rains. Those planters who experimented by sprinkling endosulfan also faced losses.

The copper sulphate supplied by state authorities this year seems to be of sub-standard quality. The areca planters are facing the brunt, as their hard labour has gone in vain.
 
The tender areca nuts are falling off from the plant in bunches in the disease-infected plantation, and the money spent on chemical fertilizers gone waste.  Who is responsible, if the planters get sub-standard quality of copper sulphate even after paying their hard earned money? Why is there no regulating agency to check the quality of copper sulphate in the market? A few years ago, a truckload of copper sulphate that was consigned to C A Bank at Uppinangady, here was returned when its quality was ascertained to be sub-standard. Why is the  department concerned mum, when the areca planters are being duped by sub-standard quality of copper sulphate, ask the distressed areca planters.
 
Hariramachandra, an areca planter in Nooji, near Uppinangady here who has an acre of plantation is in distress. He was overjoyed when he saw the new crop blooming in his plantation, but the joy was short-lived, as soon the tender areca nuts began falling to the ground, despite sprinkling bodo mixture to curb the disease.  His hope of repaying his bank loan has gone awry.
 
"I expected bumper crop in my areca plantation this time, but my hopes waned when I found the new crop scattered all over the ground. I am worried now as to how to repay the loan that I had borrowed from the bank," says Hariramachandra.