Mon State dam floods nearby paddy fields.

After heavy rains, rice paddies flooded by a dam runoff have yet to be replanted. Many paddy farmers are suffering as the season progresses and they are unable to replant their fields.

About 200 acres of rice paddy fields are flooded with water from the Winphanon dam project in Mudon township, Mon state. The flooding has come after particularly heavy rains in the area.

“About 200 acres of paddy field can’t be replanted with seedlings since the heavy rain. We are out of time now to transplant the paddies. We are trying to make the water drain away so we can weed out the grip grass in our paddy field, so we can grow more seedling plants,“ said a farmer from Doe mar village, Mudon Township.

Since the recent heavy rain, paddy fields near the Winpano dam in Mudon township, have been destroyed in Kalort-tort, Taungpa, Doe-mar, and Kwan-ka-bue villages. Fields were flooded by spill water from the dam, which is located up river from the villages and their fields.

Early on in the month heavy rain hit Mudon township destroying famers rice seedling plants which had already begun to grow.

“We only can grow our plants in 1 acre out of 8. Paddy fields from other townships have been transplanted for growing. Now we have to restart planting. We lose money and time. If we transplant our seedlings late in the season it will be difficult when we cultivate the rice."

After the government built Winphannon dam in 2001, the main river that flowed out to sea was blocked. The government authorities dug a trench to act as an alternative runoff for overflow water. But because the trench is unfinished the overflow water has not been able to runoff in the rainy season and instead flows into paddy fields and lower land village.

According to several Taungpa villagers, the Burmese authorities grow their own summer paddies in the villagers’ paddy fields around the Winphanon dam. The Burmese authorities use water from the dam in summer. But, according to local villagers, the workers for the authorities are inexperienced, and cultivate the crop in such a way that a lot of grass ends up growing in the paddy fields. So when the rainy season arrives, farmers find their fields destroyed and have to take time pulling out the grass.

“When it rains heavily the water floods our villages and we can’t go anywhere,” a villager who lives near the dam said. “Before the Winphannon Dam project was done, we didn’t face this kind of situation.”

imna