KOCHI: The agriculture department is all smiles this Onam. Their integrated vegetable development programme has yielded results, further reducing Kerala’s dependency on other states to meet the demand for vegetables during the festival.
Until a few years ago, Kerala had been completely dependent on neighbouring states to meet the demand. This is gradually changing thanks to cluster-based vegetable cultivation for the open market and homestead cultivation that encourages families to grow vegetables for personal consumption.
According to Agriculture Minister P Prasad, Kerala will achieve 100 per cent self-sufficiency in vegetable production by 2026.
This year, the department has organised 2,000 Onam fairs where farm produce, procured from farmers at a 10 per cent higher rate, are sold at a 30 per cent discount. Integrated farming helped produce 33,191 tonnes of vegetables in August, the highest in recent years. To achieve this, the department distributed 25 lakh vegetable seeds and 100 lakh seedlings to families, students and social organisations. Besides, 116.66 lakh high-yield vegetable seedlings were distributed to farmer collectives.
“The state depends on other states mainly for onion and high-altitude vegetables like carrot, potato, beetroot, cauliflower and cabbage. Integrated farming has helped Kerala achieve near self-sufficiency in the production of other vegetables,” said an agriculture department official.
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The department has highlighted the achievement of Kalliyur panchayat in Thiruvananthapuram and Elavanchery panchayat in Palakkad as success models.
Kalliyur panchayat
Kalliyur panchayat had planned four months in advance to meet the Onam demand. Farmers were trained in farming techniques to produce safe-to-eat organic vegetables. The panchayat has 11 vegetable cultivation clusters, each spread across five hectares. The production target was 400 tonnes.
Long beans, bitter gourd, snake gourd, spinach, cucumber, pumpkin, bottle gourd, tomato, brinjal, green chilli and bhindi (ladies finger) are being cultivated on a total of 55 hectares. The products are marketed through Krishi Bhavan’s Ecoshop. The vegetables are delivered to customers within a 40-km radius at their doorsteps, said agriculture officer C Swapna.
Besides, there are 212 farmers collectives that cultivate vegetables on 30 hectares. “We cultivated vegetables in fallow lands and vacant spaces on roadsides. Value-added products are being marketed online. We provide kits containing 22 vegetables for Rs 500 and cut-vegetable kits for Rs 800. There are 60 value-added products, including rice powder, various pickles, chips and jaggery banana chips (sarkara varatti),” Swapna said.
The panchayat has around 1,000 farmers, a majority of whom are cultivating on leased farmlands. Around 600 farmers are part of the clusters. Members of the collective are mostly marginal farmers and MNREGS workers who attend to crops in the evening after work. Krishi Bhavan markets raw rice under the brand names Vellayani rice and Palapuru rice. Raag farmers’ collective is in charge of online marketing while the agriculture task force collects, segregates and delivers vegetables to customers. Twelve labourers are tasked with packaging the value-added products.
Panangattiri model
Farmers under the Vegetable and Fruit Promotion Council Kerala (VFPCK) in Panangattiri hamlet of Elavanchery panchayat market 20 tonnes of bitter gourd and snake gourd every day. Other products are long beans, ash gourd, snake gourd, bhindi and pumpkin. Brinjal, tomato and green chilli are cultivated sparsely. Villagers who used to cultivate paddy, groundnuts, yams, colocasia and bananas until two decades ago changed the crops due to wild boar menace. “We receive order for supplying vegetables a day in advance and segregate them as per demand. Traders collect the produce from farmlands,” said Madhu, the president of Elavanchery Farmers Self-Help Group.