Kerala farming


We've seen a lot of Kerala's fishing industry, and a little bit of the coconut and coir industry ("industry" in both cases being used loosely), but during my trip to Plachimada I got my first glimpse of agriculture. Plachimada is in the foothills of the Western Ghats, the mountain chain that runs north-south through Southern India, and the main crops are spices (and tea at higher elevations).

After interviewing an official of the Perumatty Panchayat (Panchayat is like a county government) at his office, we gave him a ride back to his house. On the drive in, I noticed some interesting looking trees and asked what they were. It turns out they were nutmeg trees, and owned by the official. We got to his house and his highly educated son, who spoke very good English, gave us a fascinating account of how globalization is changing agriculture in Kerala while we drank pomegranate juice and tender coconut (what you might know as coconut milk).

What it boils down to is that Kerala farmers now must compete globally against goods that are grown and processed with huge subsidies in the U.S. and Europe. This was a big issue in the recent Hong Kong round of WTO negotiations. The prices local farmers can get for some of their goods are driven down by farmers getting subsidies in other countries. Throughout India, in fact, there is a trend of farmers who go into debt to buy chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and other inputs common in western industrialized agriculture. When these investments don't pay off, and the farmers can't get out of debt, many commit suicide.

The particular farm I visited is profitable, largely because the family operating it is highly educated and has been able to adapt the farm to changes in global markets. The main strategy employed is to diversify crops. Most farmers in Kerala have one crop on their land. During a bad year, or when market prices drop, the farmer suffers. By diversifying crops, a farm is somewhat protected against these fluctuations.

The farm I visited grows nutmeg, betel nut, vanilla, allspice, coconuts, and pepper. We got a tour of the land and the innovative practices being employed (like intercropping, drip irrigation, vermicomposting, and various organic techniques). An interesting approach employed on this farm is to reduce labor inputs as much as possible. In most of India labor is extremely cheap, but in Kerala, for various reasons, labor is more expensive. Harvesting nutmeg is pretty labor intensive. The pod is picked, then opened and the mace is carefully removed from the nut. The pod, mace, and nut all have value (the mace only so long as it remains in tact after removal from the nut. The pictures below show a tree, and the pod with nut and mace.



The vanilla vines are very interesting. They are deprived of water for a month before they are ready to flower. Then they are watered abundantly to stimulate lots of flowering. Later come the beans, which are picked and then dried. Here's a vanilla vine picture.



The betel nut, which is an ingredient in pan, a tobacco-like product chewed by many Indians, grows on a palm-like tree. It is picked and dried before being processed. Those are vanilla vines growing up the trunks of betel nut palms in the picture below.


Except for the fact that some of the nutmeg on this farm is sold to Coca Cola (nutmeg is one of the not-so-secret ingredients in its syrup), my visit to the farm did not have much to do with my research on the Plachimada anti-Coca Cola struggle. Nevertheless, I am glad to have had the opportunity to see the way some of these crops are grown.

A (black) pepper plant.

Posted: Sat - January 28, 2006 at 05:43 AM          

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