BALIK PULAU – More than 50 rice farmers in the Sg Burung area here have to bear huge losses after more than 121 hectares of rice fields produced half-filled or empty grain, following an attack of “hawar bulir bakteria” (bacterial panicle blight or BPB).
This grim situation has affected their income and its timing is even more distressing given that the padi farmers need to sustain their daily expenses during the post-pandemic recovery phase.
One of them, Azahri Hariff, 44, who cultivates 14 hectares of rice fields in Sg Burung said that every season he would spend RM60,000 on his land to cultivate padi.
However, when he checked his padi fields recently, he found that most of the plants were attacked by BPB disease which would affect the production of rice.
“Every rice harvest season, I can produce between 80 and 90 tonnes of rice but this season the production is affected due to the disease.
“I believe that the BPB disease which attacked the rice fields in the Sg Burung area is caused by unpredictable weather changes that are currently affecting the country,” he told Bernama recently.
He added that he was concerned to see the condition of padi fields in the area that were attacked by BPB disease, which would cause farmers such as himself to suffer losses.
Azahri hoped that the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industries could help padi farmers whose income was affected by the disease.
Another rice farmer in Sg Burung, Talib Hamid, 70, claimed that this season he only managed to harvest five tonnes of rice from his 2.02 hectares of land, compared with the usual 15 to 16 tonnes.
Talib said that this was the first time his padi was attacked by the disease which affected his rice yields. – Bernama, August 10, 2022
