Abdul Hai, 59, is a farmer. Everything his family needs, from food to the children's schooling, is paid for by his paddy. This year the paddy he grew with his sweat went under water two weeks before it ripened, and he is at a loss over how he will get through the coming year.

Abdul Hai, of Ranagaon village in Kalmakanda upazila of Netrokona, has seven people in his family. Thousands of farmers in the district are in the same position after crops were damaged by waterlogging in the haors caused by several days of excessive rain. They are helpless after losing their crops. While crops go under in some haors, in others farmers are trying desperately to save them by building dams.

Dams have been cut in many haors to drain the water, and in some places pumps have been set up to remove it. In some haors, crops in the low-lying areas have been drowned by the waterlogging.

Shahed Mia, a farmer of Barokapon village in the same area, has lost two and a half acres of land to the heavy rain. With a family of six, he too is worried, and with all his fields under water he is close to losing his mind.

On Saturday morning he waded into his submerged field, where the water was at least seven feet deep, and was diving to pull up paddy. "If the paddy had ripened, I would have tried to harvest it and consoled myself," he said. "But the unripe paddy is rotting in the waterlogging before my eyes. I cannot sleep at night for worry. The crop could have been cut in two weeks, and just then everything went under. If it rains and the water does not fall, the rest of the land will go under too. Because water is standing in these fields, the base of the paddy plants has started to rot."

Sunil Sarkar, 60, of Barokapon in the same area, said: "I had to borrow to farm the land. How will I repay that loan now? And how will the rest of the year go? That is my worry." He added, in the local dialect: "What will I do? My heart breaks. How will I get by? The government did nothing, all the paddy is gone."

Md Nurul Amin, a leader of the Haor Rakkha Andolon (Save the Haor movement), said that by their observation paddy on at least 15,000 to 20,000 hectares had been damaged by waterlogging. "Waterlogging has appeared in many haors because of unplanned and unnecessary dam building," he said. "Rivers, canals and beels are not dredged; they have silted up. That is why farmers are lamenting. The administration and the Water Development Board (WDB) have taken no initiative to solve this problem. Farmers are weeping and they are only doing inspections to discharge their duty."

Shafiqul Islam, chairman of Barokapon union in Kalmakanda, said: "When we got news of the waterlogging, we built dams at at least three places by volunteer labour with more than 200 farmers from several villages, so that no more haors go under. For the last four days we have stayed up at night guarding the dams so that no one cuts them. But the Water Development Board and the local administration need to be more active. Otherwise the farmers' crops will be ruined."

Waterlogging has developed after the heavy rain in Dingapota, Charhaijda, Chandrasonartal and Shoytankhali haors in Mohanganj; in Kirtankhola, Pangasia, Katichapra, Lakshmipasha, Boali, Jagannathpur and Bilbilliya in Khaliajuri upazila; and in various haors of Madan and Barhatta upazilas. Crops in several haors have been heavily damaged. However, the district agriculture department has no accurate account of the losses; it said the damage would be assessed and announced.

Boro has been grown on 184,000 hectares in the district this year, of which 42,000 hectares are in the haors. Because earth was put on the dams late, there is a risk that they could break and endanger the haor crop. Full-scale harvesting in the haors begins in mid-April.

Agriculturist Dilip Sen said: "If paddy plants stay submerged for five to six days, there will be damage. If the water recedes before that, the damage will be less. But if water reaches the plants at the booting stage, the chance of empty grains increases."

According to the district Water Development Board, there are about 365 km of submersible (temporary) dams under the WDB in the district. This year 202 project implementation committees (PICs) were formed to build and repair 137.579 km of dams, with an allocation of Tk 30 crore 52 lakh. Of the 202 PICs formed, 143 are in Khaliajuri, 29 in Mohanganj, 19 in Madan and 10 in Kalmakanda.

Md Sakhawat Hossain, executive engineer of the district WDB, said: "Earthwork on all the haor dams is complete, and grass has been planted on them. There is some waterlogging in the low-lying areas. If there is no more rain, there will not be much damage."

Deputy Commissioner Khandakar Mushfiqur Rahman, who chairs the haor crop protection dam implementation committee, said: "The highest level of supervision is being given to the crop protection dam work in the haors, and monitoring of every dam has been stepped up. We have received news that farmers' boro crops in some low-lying areas have gone under because of the heavy rain. Monitoring to protect crops in the haors has been increased."

Meanwhile, local people are building dams by volunteer labour in Kalmakanda and several other haors to save their only crop of the year. After hearing that farmers were building dams, Deputy Speaker Barrister Kaiser Kamal MP visited the affected areas and promised a permanent solution, including planned dams and dredging of rivers and canals.

"I am also a farmer's son," he said. "In my childhood I cut earth for the dams with my father to protect the crop. The state is certainly responsible for this suffering now. Without a specific plan, this problem of farmers cannot be solved. The Honourable Prime Minister has also said rivers and canals will be dredged. If this programme is implemented, I hope this crisis for farmers will ease."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.