Though Palakkad district is still considered the traditional rice bowl of Kerala, its paddy fields are vanishing at an alarming rate with farmers taking to other lucrative crops and the real estate mafia altering the land-use patterns. According to studies done by the geography department of the Government College in Chittur, near here, the district has lost 1,03,980 hectares of paddy fields in the last four decades.
The decline in paddy cultivation and large-scale reclamation of traditional rice fields have started adversely affecting groundwater availability in the district. As paddy fields can regulate atmospheric temperature to some extent, study by the department attributes the increasing daytime temperature in Palakkad district to large-scale reclamation of paddy fields.
“The district had 1,83,181 hectares of rice fields in the beginning of the 1970s. At present, it has hardly 79,201 hectares. Even the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act of 2008 to conserve paddy fields has failed to arrest the trend,” said Richard Scaria, an assistant professor with the department.
Dangerous trend“Though rice fields in Palakkad constitute hardly 38.51 per cent of the acreage under paddy cultivation, it still accounts for 62 per cent of rice production in the State,” he said. As per surveys conducted by the department, about 25 hectares of rice fields are reclaimed every year to cultivate cash crops and to convert to real estate. If the trend continues, paddy fields in Palakkad will “disappear” in another 35 years.
Lack of government support, delay in release of procurement price, climate change impact, and change in land-use patterns are preventing farmers from continuing with paddy cultivation.
Besides, there is a growing preference among farmers for ginger cultivation. Rice fields are being leased out to farmers from outside the State to cultivate ginger. Real estate lobbies buy paddy fields from farmers at cheap rates and convert them to housing plots. “The farmers are forced to sell the fields owing to loss in paddy cultivation,” says farmers’ leader Muthalamthode Mani.
