Kerala - Kochi   

Paddy land Bill harmful to small farmers: Infam

KOCHI: The Indian Farmers’ Movement (Infam) has urged the government to drop those provisions in the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Bill that are harmful to the interests of the farmers.

As part of taking the views of the public on the proposed law, the Select Committee of the Assembly will hold a sitting in Kochi on December 7. The Infam will present its objections to the committee, the leaders told The Hindu.

They said that the Bill, which aimed at saving the paddy fields from vanishing under the onslaught of construction activities and farming of commercial crops, however, was unrealistic. Moreover, it would clip the fundamental rights of the farmers to engage in the kind of agriculture that suited them best.

P.V. Elias, Ernakulam district president of Infam, said the provision that allowed the District Collector to take over paddy fields which were left fallow or which were used for other uses such as pineapple and banana cultivation or fish-breeding was appalling. The Bill provided for imprisonment for one to three years and a penalty of Rs.50,000 to Rs.1 lakh for land-filling or sand-mining in the fields.

Mr. Elias said the farmers turned to farming other crops because rice farming was no longer cost-effective. If the government was willing to provide subsidies to compensate the loss or to raise the price of rice, the farmers were more than willing to go back to rice farming. He said if a farmer rented out his field for pineapple farming he would get up to Rs.20,000 a year as rent, but on the other hand if he cultivated rice, he would lose more than Rs.20,000. The farmers should be allowed to cultivate whatever crop he wanted, Mr. Elias said.

M.C. George, national trustee of Infam, said in this era of globalisation and modern agriculture, it was ridiculous to insist on the farmers to engage in loss-making rice cultivation.

He said that rice could be cultivated in any part of the country, but many of the commercial crops raised in Kerala could not be cultivated in any other parts of the country.

The Bill was an attempt to curtail the destruction of rice fields, which were the natural water resources. The objectives of the Bill were protection of water bodies, ensuring water availability for the future and protection of the habitats.

Another major objective was to prevent rice fields from being turned into housing plots in the ongoing real estate boom.

However, the Bill might hit the small farmers hard as they would not have any leeway in the use of their land from which they eke out a living, he said.

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