Traditional farming to be promoted in Wayanad

Proposal to declare Attappady millet-growing area

Agriculture Minister V.S. Sunil Kumar on Thursday rolled out his department’s plan for the coming years, which include declaring Wayanad district for traditional agriculture crop and practices, Attappady millet-growing area, and allocating more funds to bring at least 3 lakh hectares of land under cultivation to produce 10 lakh tonnes of paddy a year.

Replying to the debate on the demands for grants for his departments, including Soil Survey and Soil Conservation, in the Assembly, Mr. Sunil Kumar indicated that the Agriculture Department intended to focus on building up the success it had achieved in bringing fallow land back to cultivation. The government had doubled the allocation for this to ₹70 crore. The target was to bring at least 90,000 hectares more of fallow land under cultivation, he said.

As part of the policy for promoting value addition of agriculture produce, Mr. Sunil Kumar said the government proposed to set up 1,000 units that would employ at least 5,000 people. Currently, value addition was only 4% of the total product value. The policy would focus on providing benefit to farmers in order to insulate them from price fluctuations.

Project Neera could not succeed because of various reasons. The government was now contemplating a proposal for common branding of Neera under the auspices of the Kerala State Coconut Development Corporation at a cost of ₹2 crore.

The proposal to declare Attappady as millet-growing area was brought up in view of the drought conditions faced by the area. The government had held talks with the Indian Institute of Millet in Bengaluru. In Wayanad, the focus would be on promoting traditional aromatic variety of rice that was endemic to the area and cultivation practices related to this. The proposal was to focus on cultivation in 450 hectares of land with a target of 3,000 tonnes.

The Minister emphasised the need to be guarded against the new Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between India and ASEAN countries as it would be detrimental to Kerala’s cash crops and milk products. The Centre has not held any discussion with the State on the RCEP. The Minister proposed to convene a meet with a view to sending an all-party delegation to New Delhi to press the Centre for protecting Kerala’s interest, particularly in rubber, which was Kerala’s main stay, catering to 80% of the country’s production.