“Nanja” paddy cultivation keeps the wolf from the door for the tribal people of Wayanad. But this time, their gamble on the monsoon has failed, and hunger stares them in their face.
Gloom pervades the Chekadi hamlet, a settlement on the Kerala-Karnataka border inside the South Wayanad forest division. In good times, the labour of the people on their smallholdings would have given them at least enough to eat. But not this year. The drought has shrivelled all hopes.
Surya Narayanan, 49, of Valiya Airadi in the hamlet, cultivated the scented Gandhakasala paddy and the traditional Valichoori variety on his one hectare of land as he does every year.
But the rain kept away and the paddy withered away. He had incurred a debt of Rs. 60,000, borrowed from financial institutions, for the cultivation of the paddy and another 0.2 hectare of ginger.
The ginger was harvested prematurely and sold at a low price after wild elephants tore down the crop. Mr. Surya Narayanan said that he had a better fortune with paddy in the previous year with the timely rain and he could repay his loan on time. But this year, he was worried about how to repay the loan.
Many farmers in the hamlet are in a similar predicament. Close to 150 farmers — 90 tribal and 60 other farmers — cultivated the scented and traditional rice varieties as usual on 90 hectares of land.
“Last year, we cultivated paddy on 120 hectares by utilising water from the check-dam on the Mudavankara stream, but this year, the monsoon did not fill up the stream,” K.N. Viswanathan, president, Chekadi Padashekharam, the largest Padashekharam in Pulpally grama panchayat, says.
The cultivated area has shrunk, and they have no hope of getting anything worthwhile from the 20 hectares on which paddy has been raised. The perennial Kabani river flows beside the hamlet, but with no irrigation project, the priceless water does not come to the help of the tribal people.
The fate of the farmers in areas such as Sasimala, Madappallykunnu, Channothkolly, Vadikkadavu and Kappisite in Mullamkolly and Pulpally grama panchayats is similar.
“We had cultivated paddy on 40 hectares of the 60 hectares under the samithi this year,” Boban of Oveliyil, president of the Sasimala Padashekharam, says. The drought destroyed half of it and if the rain does not show any urgency, all hopes will dry up.
The open wells and streams have started to dry out even before the advent of winter. The poor rain has affected coffee, ginger, cardamom and pepper crops too, sources say.
