Farmers, who had accepted the RR-564 from the agriculture department, had sown it in nearly 10,000 kanals of land. The entire crop stands ruined now, the farmers have reported.

The seed was developed by scientists at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agriculture Science (SKUAST), Jammu, along with the Agriculture Department at Chakroi farm near Satwari, over a period of five years.

Balwinder Singh, a farmer from R S Pura, said, “The crop has uneven growth and some plants don’t have grain, which has astonished those who accepted the new seed.”

“The officials had told us that every kanal (where the new variety would be sown) would produce three quintals of Basmati rice. We will instead lose Rs 8,000-Rs10,000 per kanal now.”

The agriculture department had provided 100 quintals of seed to farmers, which were sown in R S Pura, Marh, Arnia, Bishnah and Satwari and other rice producing areas in the Jammu division.

A senior scientist at SKUAST-Jammu, Anil Sharma, however, said it was not the failure of the scientists but those who supplied seeds to the farmers.

“We developed the seed and gave it to the agriculture department after stringent checks. It was their duty to supply the seed to the farmers. Many farmers who took the seed directly from us have not complained about anything.”

According to sources, the RR-564 could have contracted a disease during the large-scale “testing cultivation” at the agriculture department-run farms where the seed was multiplied for further supply to the farmers.

Sources added that with the paddy growers already facing the brunt of fungus attack, this new problem has threatened the production targets of the agriculture department and also the survival of the people associated with paddy cultivation.

Director, Agriculture, Jammu, Vinod Bala Sharma said special teams have been constituted to assess the problem. “After receiving complaints we have constituted special teams who are collecting samples from the field. It is only when they will submit their report that we can come to any sort of conclusion”.

Farmers said that they did cite apprehensions about the seed provided by the scientists but the agriculture department assured them that it was a high-yielding variety and will mature much earlier than the earlier variety of Basmati.

And as if the fungus attack and failure of the new variety Basmati seed wasn’t enough, the recent hailstorms have dealt another blow to the farmers. Jammu, which was passing through a dry spell, received the much-awaited rainfall from the passing Western disturbances, but the accompanying hailstorms previous week in the border belt of R S Pura, parts of Bishnah, Bari Brahmana and Akhnoor has destroyed the standing crops.

“Hailstorms had affected a large part of the rice-growing areas and has destroyed hundreds of kanals of standing crops,” said Balkar Singh, a farmer at R S Pura belt, famous for its Basmati rice.

Deputy Commissioner M K Bhandari said a special team has been constituted to survey the area from where the administration has received reports of crop damages.

“We have sent a team headed by the tehsildar to inspect the affected areas. Once the team submits its report, we will take a decision,” said Bhandari.

According to the farmers, about 75 per cent of the paddy growing area is under threat. The high-yielding varieties of rice grown in the region include IET-1410, Ratna, Tawi (PC-19), Jaya and China-1039 or K-39. In Basmati, the varieties include Basmati 370, Ranbir Basmati and Saanwal Basmati.