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G. K. Nair

Kochi, April 7 Kerala’s second granary Kuttanad (the first being Palakkad) has lost about 50 per cent of its paddy crop due to the extended summer showers and acute labour shortage in a State that produces hardly 25 per cent of its annual rice requirements.

Around 40 per cent of Kerala’s rice production is from Kuttanad. The area under paddy in this region has already shrunk to around 37,000 hectares from 55,000. Being a low lying area only single crop is cultivated during October-March.

The crop becomes ripe for harvesting from first week of March. But, in the absence of adequate labour, harvesting could not take place and meanwhile, aggravating the situation this year, came extended summer showers felling the ripe paddy pinnacles in the water filled marshy fields.

In vast stretches of paddy fields harvesting has become impossible as the fallen paddy has started germinating besides decaying the hay. As a result the hay as well as the paddy has become unusable.

In the past, when there used to be enough workers, the harvesting, threshing, and winnowing of the paddy in an acre was completed in three days where as, now it takes about 10 days.

This delay and the rains during this period have spoilt the crop. The yield per hectare is 6.25 tonne and at the announced procurement price of Rs 10/kg the total sale proceeds would come to Rs 62,500/acre. An estimated 50 per cent of the yield has been lost now, farmers in Lower and Upper Kuttanad told Business Line.

The loss could have been averted had the trade unions allowed the farmers to harvest manually where workers are available and by using machines where they were not available.

But, this has not happened because of the politics involved, Fr Thomas Thomas Peelianickal, Executive Director, Kuttanad Vikasana Samithi (Kuttanad Development Society), told Business Line.

He argued that given the acute shortage of labour, mechanisation is the only solution at least for harvesting. The crop in the entire region becomes ripe uniformly and hence harvesting has to be done at a time. The situation has reached such a stage of late that “here the farmers have no freedom to harvest their crop even though they are the people who are playing the pivotal role to ensure food security”, he said.

Trade unions claimed that there were 15,000 workers in Kuttanad. But, actually there are hardly 1,500 workers now in the entire area. For getting the workers/using the machines, farmers have to register with the union office. A team from the union office would visit the area to see if there are workers available. Invariably there would not be adequate number of workers. This process itself delays the harvesting.

According to Mr Kuttappan, a worker in Poovam in Kuttanad, there are not enough workers. “You cannot find any worker below 45 years of age here. The younger generation is not interested in working on the marshy paddy fields as they can find other white collar or comfortable jobs in the towns and cities in Kerala as well as in the Gulf.”

The current daily wages for men are Rs 300 and women Rs 250. “Even if you offer Rs 500 a day there are none to take up this work. We get work for six months and during the remaining six months these places remain under water. Then we go and do other jobs in the highlands,” he said.

The yield per hectare is normally 62.5 quintal. Almost 50 per cent of it has been lost. In upper Kuttanad, 540 hectares of paddy out of 785 ha have been badly affected, Mr Sam Eapen, President, Upper Kuttanad Paddy Farmers’ Society told Business Line.

He said that the relief announced by the Government should be actual compensation and it should not be minimised according to the existing norms.

At present the labour cost involved in harvesting is estimated at around Rs 3,500 per acre and if the machine is deployed harvesting, threshing and winnowing could be done at Rs 1,500-Rs 1,750 per acre, Mr Jacob Nendassery, a farmer said.

Father Thomas has urged the Government to take up the responsibility to make available at least 200 harvesting machines in two days. According to him, the youths in the region could be involved in handling the machines after getting them trained. The farmers’ groups/or the workers’ societies could own the machines, he said.

The Government and the trade unions should ensure a fool-proof arrangement lest the crop in the future should be lost, he added.

Meanwhile, a Central team has visited the affected areas and assessed the losses. The State Government is said to be submitting its report to the Centre on Tuesday.

More Stories on : Rice | Cultivation | Kerala

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