Click to play videoThiruvananthapuram: Rice is scarce in God's own country. While the state government blames it on the quantity of rice given by the Centre, the root of the problem is fast disappearing fields.
Once, rice used to grow in the fields of Kerala - now coconuts have taken over. Mohanlal switched from food crop to cash crops a few years ago - just one of the 3.5 million farmers who now grow coconut it takes 40 per cent of the cropped area.
Mohanlal says, “We used to cultivate paddy. But increasing manure prices and lack of labour force forced us to replace it with cash crops. Thank god we are doing well now. "
But you can still eat coconut. Today the biggest threat to agriculture is real estate. Paddy fields are being re-filled illegally and recklessly to build concrete slums.
Minister for Food and Civil Supplies C Divakaran said, "We are controlling the real estate business in the state. For that we will make some legislation to ban real estate. Its also true we have started more areas to convert into paddy field."
Between 1980 and 2000, land under rice cultivation declined by 56 per cent, the production of rice fell by 41 per cent while the population increased by 24 per cent. During the same time, the area under coconut cultivation increased by 35 per cent and rubber, by a staggering 127 per cent.
But you can't eat rubber. So while local production fell, dependence the central government rose Kerala has been hit by a massive cut in the allocation of food grains especially for 70 lakh people who have above poverty line ration cards from 1,13,0000 metric tonnes to just 17,000 tonnes in one year that’s a staggering cut of 85 per cent.
The spectre of scarcity looms large. The price is rising so are political temperatures. With the new food security scheme, Kerala government hopes to give agriculture a new lease of life.
But unless effective measures are put in place to control construction over such agriculture land, self-sufficiency in food grain will always remain a distant dream.
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