Chandigarh: Farmers in Punjab are facing problems in harvesting wheat crop as around 14 lakh hectares (40%) of 34.90 lakh hectares of wheat sown in the state has been impacted by rain, high-velocity winds and hailstorm, reports Hindustan Times.
The flattened crop cannot be harvested using a combine harvester machine and there is a shortage of labour for doing it manually, according to experts.
“We cannot use a combine harvester to harvest the flattened crop as it is a time-consuming consuming process and harvesting crop manually is also a tedious task,” said a farmer from the rain-affected region.
“For one acre of land, it takes 20 minutes to harvest the normal wheat crop by harvester but it takes one hour to harvest the flattened crop. We used to pay Rs 2,500 per acre last year to harvest crops but now we have to pay Rs 3,500 per acre to the harvester plus Rs 2,500 per acre for manual cutting,” he said.
Unseasonal rainfall from March 23 to April 3 has damaged the wheat crop grown on 14 lakh hectares and there are least chances of finding healthy grain, said Dr SS Gosal, vice-chancellor, of Ludhiana Punjab Agriculture University.
