Stray Cattle Menace Devastates Diglipur Farmers’ Rabi Crops as Administration Remains Inactive

Rabindranath Biswas
Diglipur, March 07: Farmers in Diglipur are facing the problem of stray cattle destroying their pulses such as mung and urud (dals), mustard and other rabi crops with hardly any efforts by the local/district administration to tackle the problem.
According to information, herds of feral cows and bulls come out of nowhere at night and even at day and invade the farms in a big way. Large groups of these animals completely ravage the fields they enter in, leaving no scope of defence for the land owner, lamented a farmer.
Speaking to Andaman Sheekha Daily, Shri Kamal Halder, President, Diglipur Farmer Union said that there is no respite from the stray cattle menace; the damage to crops by stray cattle has reportedly broken farmers economically over the last couple years, while the administration has reportedly failed to provide and solution to it, he decried.
The current season is of rabi crops and farmers have sown pulses like mung, kalai/urud and seeds such as mustard, sesame etc. in their fields; and when they find that the stray cattle have gobbled up their entire pulse crops, they break down and start weeping, he said. “Farming is reportedly already a losing proportion in the present times for various reasons. On the other hand, stray cattle and other animals often venture into agricultural fields causing huge losses to poor farmers, who are already struggling to make their both ends meet,” Mr. Halder said. He reportedly demanded that the local/district administration must come to the rescue of the farmers. Ideally, stray cattle should be taken to cow shelters, but cowsheds in Diglipur are non-functional, according to the President, Diglipur Farmer Union.
A farmer, on condition of anonymity, was of the opinion that the village panchayats and NGOs should come forward and set up cowsheds at the village level to tackle the problem, which has increased alarmingly in the past few years.
Meanwhile, Diglipur Farmer Union president Mr. Kamal Halder said that if the administration doesn’t take initiatives to resolve the problem, reportedly he wouldn’t restrain himself from resorting to taking drastic steps to this effect, he threatened.