TAIPING: A group of rice farmers had to see the drying Bukit Merah Lake for themselves because they were truly terrified of getting empty rice kernels for the upcoming harvest season.
“Our family members tending to our rice fields have grown depressed because we have no water at the worst time,” lamented Kampung Semanggol villager Shima Ali, 39, yesterday.
“If you come to my village, you see green fields everywhere and it looks nice. The padi shoots are knee-high, so they won’t die.
“But this is the worst possible time to have no water because we must flood our fields right now with at least a few centimetres of water. The season is all wrong,” she said, adding that without proper irrigation, there will be a significant proportion of panicles with hollow grains (a phenomenon also known as panicle blanking).
Shima explained that when padi grows on dry fields, the grains that form will be mostly hollow ones that get blown away by the wind during harvesting time.
“We can’t even apply fertiliser now because the fields need to be soaking wet for the fertiliser to dissolve,” she said.
Shima and two of her village friends drove to the lakeside yesterday just as a team from The Star also visited to understand the situation.
“We know the government started cloud seeding here on Monday, and it did rain heavily for a while after that. We appeal to the government not to stop. We really need rain,” she said, adding that this was the longest dry spell she could remember, even though there were drier but short-lived periods in previous years.
Kerian District, where Shima lives, has over 21,000ha of padi fields, which is almost the size of Penang island (29,500ha).
Bukit Merah Lake, built in 1906, is Malaysia’s oldest man-made lake constructed for rice field irrigation.
As of yesterday, the Irrigation and Drainage Department’s online data show that its level has dropped to 5.98m, while its normal level is 8.68m.
Things are also gloomy at the 144-year-old Taiping Lake Gardens.
Over 70% of the channel of lakes here has evaporated, leaving a dystopian scenery of cracking, sun-baked mud.
On Monday, Perak’s Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah, accompanied by Raja Permaisuri Perak Tuanku Zara Salim, Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Saarani Mohamad and Taiping MP Wong Kah Woh, visited the Taiping Lake Gardens.
Taiping is known for being the “wettest town” in Peninsular Malaysia, getting about 4,000mm of rain each year, while the national average is between 2,000mm and 2,500mm.
