KOCHI: Unremunerative prices and escalating cost of labour have forced many farmers to give up paddy cultivation in the State.

In many areas, non-availability of labourers is a problem. They have turned to other vocations, because they could not get enough to sustain their livelihood from conventional paddy areas.

Paddy farming areas now depend on labour force from other States, says R. Raghunathan, son of a farmer who has turned to business. His one acre has been left fallow after he incurred loss from the previous paddy crop. He and many others have found an easy way out — buy rice from the market, a practice the earlier generations never resorted to.

Some farmers have converted their fields for other purposes, including setting up of brick kilns. The practice has only increased the problems of the State.

Environmental damage

In the process of conversion of paddy fields, environmental considerations are discarded. The water table, which was protected by paddy fields, bears the brunt of this activity, with the result that many areas have gone dry. The problem will aggravate with more fields being converted for various purposes.

The real estate boom has also dealt a blow to the environment. Large tracts have been converted into housing plots. Here again, the individual gains, but the land is deprived of the facility to retain water.

Kerala produces only one-fifth of its paddy requirement of 40 lakh tonnes of paddy. The remaining quotient is procured from other States. In the event of a drought in other States, it would have serious repercussions in Kerala, warns C.T. Krishnan, an expert in farming affairs.

It is not merely a problem of labour or prices that has adversely affected farming operations in Kerala, says John Thomas, whose father was a well-known farmer in Kuttanad. It needs political will to initiate steps to support farming activities.

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