All this when both rice production and the area under paddy in Kerala has been plummeting over the years. The state depends on its neighbours for about 80 per cent of its requirement. It had 2.76 lakh hectares under paddy last year, against 7.53 lakh hectares in 1961-62, a clear 63 per cent drop. Kerala needs at least 30 tonnes to feed its people, but its rice production was 6.3 lakh tonnes last year, against the 13.39 lakh tonnes in 1981.

Farm labour makes up a bulk of the CPM cadre in the area. Local farmers say even its union’s recently acquired flexibility to consider selective sanction for farm machines had more to do with its own survival. On one side, the strongly unionised workers had been regularly pushing up wages. On the other, too many had given up the work after their kids either migrated and began sending home more money than they would earn on farms, or opted for more lucrative and regular work, like in real estate and road building. Ironically, in this state with a mounting unemployment rate, farmers here seldom get enough workers to reap their crop in time each harvest season, and can’t use machines without the comrades’ nod, either.

Result: Desperate farmers have been trying to shift from unviable and labour intensive paddy to cash crops in many places. Not even the VS Achuthanandan-led campaign a year ago in some parts of the district, in which comrades physically chopped down standing cash crops to force farmers back to farming paddy, has helped.

... contd.