Kerala   

SHGs to the rescue of pepper farmers

Kattappana: A severe shortage of male labourers has forced many farmers with medium- and small-scale pepper crops to seek the help of women’s self-help groups to pluck the produce.

Still, pepper in thousands of hectares of land has not been plucked in areas bordering Tamil Nadu.

Farmers also find it difficult to dry the harvest owing to the summer rain.

Labour union leaders said that in this season, the shortage of male labourers was severe in the agrarian sector. They attributed it to the large-scale migration of labourers to towns in search of better wages.

“The average wage per day for plucking pepper is between Rs. 125 and Rs. 150, while in the construction field, it is double than that,” said a local union leader.

With the Tamil labourers leaving the crisis-hit tea estates, the situation aggravated.

Unlike tea and coffee, pepper is not cultivated on a large scale in Idukki district. The farmers who have pepper crop on less than 4 hectares of land used to hire labourers during the harvest season. Plucking pepper used to a male preserve.

“One needs physical fitness and has to stand on ladders for hours, This, in addition to low wages, is the main reason for the general apathy of labourers towards plucking the yield,” said Jojo Antony, a young pepper farmer.

It is as if to fill this vacuum created by the shortage of male labourers that women members of self-help groups came forward to pluck pepper. The credit for engaging the first women’s group in plucking pepper goes to the Anugraha Swasraya Sanghom at Anyartholu.

When the 25 members of the group offered help to farmers, many thought that after a few days they would not continue it. However, the pessimists were proved wrong and the group is actively into the work.

Now, many women are seen plucking pepper standing on ladders at Anyartholu and adjoining villages. It provides them additional income.

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