A Rs.64-crore action plan for developing agriculture in tribal areas is being implemented by the Department of Tribal Welfare under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) at Attappady in the district.
The action plan was finalised at a meeting of district-level officials of the Departments of Agriculture, Rural Development, Tribal Welfare, Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP), and the Attappady Hill Area Development Society (AHADS) convened by District Collector K.V. Mohan Kumar last month.
Under the plan, the five tribal cooperative societies at Sholayur, Kottathara, Pudur, Agali, and Mukkali would be revived to get agriculture loan and set up marketing facilities for their products.
The meeting decided to revive the Attappady Cooperative Farming Society and bring vast areas under it at Karuvara, Chindakki, Pothupadi, and Varadimala under agriculture.
The revival of tribal agriculture is a major scheme being taken up by the MGNREGS at Attappady in the last two years. It had helped in reviving cultivation on hundreds of acres earlier kept fallow by the tribal people. Most of the tribal people had abandoned agriculture due to land alienation at Attappady.
The majority of the 30,000-strong tribal population dropping agriculture as a livelihood due to loss of fertile land and lack of means to take up cultivation had threatened their food security resulting in starvation and malnutrition.
Attappady block officer P.V. Radhakrishnan said during the last financial year, 273 tribal families in 106 hamlets at the three grama panchayats of Pudur, Sholayur, and Agali took up cultivation on 352 acres. Of the total 13,000 acres of fallow land at Attappady, 5,500 belonged to the tribal families.
He said if the tribal people were given quality seed, fertilizer, irrigation, and marketing facilities they would be able to take up cultivation as a vocation. It not only ensured employment but also helped in developing agriculture among the tribal people.
Meanwhile, a team of officials from the Rural Development Department of Tamil Nadu, headed by Additional Secretary Ponnayyan, visited tribal farms at Kudanchala and Bodychala in Sholayur grama panchayat last week.
They were impressed by the scheme and wanted to replicate it in tribal areas there, Mr. Radhakrishnan said.
