THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: During the lockdown over a dozen tribal youths in the Kottoor forest range who were doing odd jobs for a living, has turned to farming, the community’s traditional livelihood. The state forest department is giving them assistance in the form of raw materials and expert advice. 35-year-old Prakashan Kani, one among them, had not attempted serious farming before. He used to work as a rubber tapper and collect forest produce to eke out a living.
The lockdown has made their lives miserable since they cannot visit local markets to sell the wild produce, Kani said. “The forest officers helped us sell the stock. They encouraged us to take up farming,” he said. Kani and others who started farming have got an assurance from the forest department - that their produce would be collected by the eco-development committees at market rates. The EDCs under the supervision of the department comprise representatives of the tribal community and those living on the forest fringes are tasked with the management of eco-tourism destinations.
The success of Vanika, an innovative project launched by the department to sell tribal produces through a WhatsApp collective, has boosted the confidence of officers, said J R Ani, Thiruvananthapuram wildlife warden. “Hence, we have given an assurance to the tribal self-help groups who ventured into farming that their products would be marketed with our support,” he said. Three SHGs named Subhala, Sujala and Sheethal, under the Kottoor section office of the Agasthyavanam Biological Park, have started vegetable farming, according to Sinukumar K C, section officer.
The crops are spinach, long beans, lady’s fingers, chilli, snake gourd and brinjal. The ten-member Subhala at Kaithode settlement has started cultivation in a one-acre land. “Cultivation of ethnic tubers like Neduan, Nooran and Kavala will begin on a 50 cent plot soon,” said its secretary Prakashan Kani. Sujala, the five-member group of the Valippara settlement, has started farming on 30 cents land. Sheethal SHG of Mankode is an all-women group. Forest Minister K Raju, K S Sabareenadhan MLA and divisional forest officer Pradeep Kumar and wildlife warden J R Ani had attended the formal start of the farming project at Kaithode recently.
