Paddy procurement in the district, which startred on Tuesday, witnessed a slow start on the first day as only 800 tonne paddy arrived in various grain markets and procurement centres across the district.
Workers drying paddy under the sun to reduce its moisture content at the new grain market in Patiala on Wednesday.
Moreover, due to minimal arrival, out of 103 purchasing centres, the government purchase of paddy has been started at only three centres—Rajpura, Nabha and Samana, while most of the purchasing centres wore a deserted look on Day-1.
However, more than 23,000 tonne of basmati varieties have arrived at grain markets. With government agencies not procuring basmati varieties, the private traders have already started purchasing basmati.
If agriculture experts are to be believed, the procurement season will gain momentum after October 6 as some of the varieties including PR 121, 122 and 140 will be fit for harvesting. These varieties will take another three to four days to mature properly.
A field agriculture officer said that after carrying out surveys in different parts of the district, many of the varieties including PR 117, 118, 122, 147, 148 and PUSA 44 are still unripe at many places and will take more than 10 days to be ready for harvesting.
{{/usCountry}}A field agriculture officer said that after carrying out surveys in different parts of the district, many of the varieties including PR 117, 118, 122, 147, 148 and PUSA 44 are still unripe at many places and will take more than 10 days to be ready for harvesting.
{{/usCountry}}Chief agriculture officer Jasbir Singh Sandhu said that farmers should not carry out out harvest ing in a haphazard manner to avoid any hitches of high mois ture content in the grain.
“The farmers should main tain some patience and go in for harvest only when the grain will get completely ripe. It will be dif ficult for the farmers to control moisture content in case they harvest their crop in its unripe state”, he said.
The Patiala district administra tion has been expecting around 12 lakh tonne of paddy production this year against 11.2 lakh tone last year.