Deluge, it was. But a rotten work culture made it a calamity.
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Result: 10,000 hectares of paddy fell to unseasonal rain between February and early March. This has spread gloom among the marginal farmers of the region. Valiyaparampil Gopi, 60, who had taken a loan of Rs 20,000, killed himself when he found he could not save his crops. It's another matter that he had been a CPI(M) branch secretary until 1991. He simply couldn't convince his comrades to provide him labour or a harvester. The CPI(M) initially contested the suicide theory, but withdrew when the agriculture department confirmed it. The last fortnight reported five similar suicides in the region. This is besides 14 farmers who died in the rains.
The case of Chettithodu Pushkaran, 69, is no different from that of Gopi. A former branch secretary of the Oorkari branch of the CPI(M), he also faced the same trauma of seeing his crop wasting in the rain as the KSKTU played truant. He consumed poison and died. Relations between farmers and labour have been tenuous over the years in Kuttanad. In spite of labour shortage, the mostly small and marginal farmers cannot freely hire harvesters. They have to get the nod from the pro-CPI(M) union before using the machines. But KSKTU leaders take time to decide whether to deploy from the labour pool or let farmers hire machines. This needless delay proved costly this time.
Says Fr Thomas Peelianikkal, the executive director of the Kuttanad Development Committee, an NGO: "Paddy sown in October-December was ready for harvest towards February after roughly 100 days of its growth cycle. Suddenly, the rains came. We sent an SOS to CPI(M) offices to allow us to bring harvesters from Tamil Nadu. Brawny commissars twisted their moustaches, and asked us to wait. We have lost an estimated Rs 60 crore worth of crops in just a fortnight." Peelianikkal led a group of volunteers, including fellow priests, to harvest whatever could be salvaged from the fields.
The shortage of labour lent itself to telling photo-ops. Tiruvalla Bishop Thomas Mar Coorillos led volunteers of the Kerala Catholic Youth Movement to paddy fields left unharvested. While the bishop escaped harsh criticism from the Left unions for his bravado, Kerala Agriculture University Vice-Chancellor K.R. Viswambharan, who took a busload of students for a demonstration on harvesting, is in a spot. The cooperation minister has demanded his removal for subtly educating his students about the problem of labour shortage.
The series of events leading up to the suicides are just the latest pages in the long chapter of farm woes in Kerala. More than 500 farmers have died in the state since 2001. In the last 25 years, 5.25 lakh hectares of farm land have been filled up for real estate and other ventures. The total area under paddy has come down from 8 lakh hectares in the 1970s to 2.64 lakh hectares. Against the annual requirement of 40 lakh tonnes of rice, Kerala produces only 6.41 lakh tonnes.
Farming has become a risky proposition. Leasing an acre of land costs Rs 22,000. If the harvest is good, the income is Rs 35,000. The profit after computing costs at best comes to Rs 13,000, which is far less than what a farm hand gets for his labour. Roughly 60 to 74 per cent of the expense is on labour.
The state government is facing a dilemma. While farmers increasingly leave the land fallow, unable to bear rising costs of cultivation, a food crisis is in the offing. Kuttanad's farmers are left to the mercy of the state and central governments. The other day, a rare multi-party delegation led by Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and Opposition leader Chandy returned empty-handed after petitioning Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a Rs 1,440 crore for the Kuttanad region.
Ironically, Kuttanad, with a population of 1.8 million, stands on edge of the Vembanad lake on which Kerala's backwater tourism thrives. The green country their boats wind through betrays no trouble on the surface. But with the government loyal only to unions, tragedy is never too far from those farms.