KOCHI: The farmers of Pizhala, a tiny island village in the midst of Kerala’s charming backwaters are gradually losing out on their livelihood. Blame it on haphazard farming techniques and lack of support for the farmers.In the late 90’s Kochi Thirumala Devaswom handed over the land to small farmers who earlier cultivated on lease. People were then engaged in the cultivation of pokkali as well as prawns.
This is a mutually compensated system in which six months are allocated for paddy while next six months are for prawns in the same field. The farmers got enough money for their livelihood from this occupation.
Farmers harvested prawns and fishes and sold them to nearby small scale companies who in turn marketed it in Fort Kochi and Aroor while some of them were exported to foreign countries too.
However, today their condition is pitiful as the output from paddy and prawns cultivation have fallen drastically.
“The causes of less production is mainly due to two things. One is because of a virus called White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) which adversely affects prawns. No one is ready to put virus free infants in the farm after a screening. The other reason is the dearth of pokkali cultivation,” said Shinoj Subramanian, senior scientist and head of Kerala Vigyan Kendra Ernakulam.“Here less production is not a problem. Real assistance is required for farmers on how to market his product without the help of an intermediary,” said Shinoj.
During harvest, paddy heads are cut and the remaining parts are left behind.This straw decays and it eventually becomes food for prawns and fish. But the lack of paddy cultivation has deprived the natural habitat of fish farming, forcing farmers to buy fish feed to continue cultivation.
Nowadays people directly enter prawn cultivation thinking it is more profitable than paddy, which is actually a wrong notion said Shinoj. “To improve prawns cultivation, we need to focus more on pokkali farming. If pokkali is running in huge losses, we need to give a premium market for it to overcome this crisis. Pokkali is a salt-resistant variety of paddy and hence it has scope in future too,” he said.
Kerala Vigyan Kendra has already registered a trademark to get premium cost for pokkali products. They have also formed Farmer Producer Company as per Indian Farmer Producer Act 2002 to upgrade farmers’ lives
“It is difficult to use machinery in these fields.Thus we arrange workers for harvest, and they demand a pay of R240 for working from morning to noon. This is tough for an ordinary farmer to afford. We are hoping for a good cultivation this year, and thus retain our legacy,” said Prakasan a member of Kadamakudi-Phizhala panchayat.
“We were getting 800 kg per hectare in the early days. Now we do not get even half the amount. We assume a change in weather and variations in tides may have caused this crisis for which we cannot find a proper solution. We are heading to a big loss since we are not getting an income from our investments. Therefore many among us have given up the cultivation and have moved on in search for other jobs to secure our lives,” said Ayyappadas, a cultivator.
“We depend on the Periyar for our irrigation needs. Now the pollution in the river has increased tremendously and the depth has also decreased in turn reducing the flow of water. This has affected our cultivation,” said Benny E X chairman, development standing committee, Pizhala.