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Impervious kisans

G. K. Nair

THE poor turnout of kisans from the four southern States at a meeting organised by the All India Kisan Sabha to chalk out an action plan against the fall in the prices of coconut and other agricultural products, indicates their imperviousness towards the whole affair organised with political aims.

Why did they not turn up? For obvious reasons which the organisers -- Kerala's politicians -- might not be aware of still. They do not know that the State does not have so many farmers who have just coconut plantations as their brothers in Tamil Nadu, An dhra Pradesh and Karnataka do. In Kerala, it is a homestead tree crop, often left unattended to. Thus, the yield is a mere 6,000 nuts per hectare compared to 16,000-17,000 in other States. There may be just a few coconut growers in the northern part of t he State and there too, a plantation may not extend beyond five-six acres.

Coconut growers in Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh have hundreds of acres for the crop and it is grown scientifically. Therefore, for them, prices must be remunerative. But in Kerala, the price is hardly an issue as farmers hardly invest anything in inputs. Also, in Kerala, so many crops are grown on the small holdings that many farmers are not even able to decide on which group to identify with.

In the case of other crops too, the situation is not different. However, for rubber, the farmers are organised though there are over eight lakh small growers with holdings of 2 to 25 acres. Here, it is not the inputs that raise the cost of production but labour. This situation has now forced the growers with small holdings to do the work themselves.

The wages for the rubber tappers, coconut tree climbers and tea pluckers and paddy field workers translate into a high input cost because of the low productivity. Thus, the farmers are reluctant to invest in farming. The worst hit are the small tea growe rs especially with green leaf prices hitting the rock-bottom.

Anyway, farmers are rarely satisfied with the price. When the natural rubber price shot up to around Rs. 70 a kg, the growers were happy but still maintained that it was just remunerative. When the price of pepper continued to rule above Rs. 200 a kg, th ey hoarded, anticipating further rise. But exporters started importing from Indonesia and Vietnam to meet their commitments. According to a study by a government agency, the cost of producing one kg of pepper in India, including Kerala, is less than Rs. 100. As in the cultivation of coconut, pepper is also intercropped with coffee, coconut, arecanut or tea. Therefore, it does not involve any heavy input cost. This is the irony of farmers.