Kerala - Kalpetta   

Team from State to visit ginger farms in Karnataka

KALPETTA: A team led by T. Bhaskaran, District Collector, Wayanad, will visit the ginger farms in Karnataka run by farmers from Kerala on Friday to ensure protection of the migrant tribal workers.

The team will evaluate the living conditions of the workers who were taken for work in the farms. Rugmini Subramanian, member of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Commission, tribal leaders, people's representatives and police and revenue officials will be in the team.

Mr. Bhaskaran told The Hindu that the District Collector of Kodagu in Karnataka had promised assistance. A meeting of high-level officials, tribal leaders and people's representative would be held after the visit and action would be taken, if necessary.

Four tribal migrant workers from the district have been found dead in mysterious circumstances in the work sites in Karnataka within a month.

The leaders of the Ginger Growers' Association, Wayanad, said they would welcome the visit but it should not hamper cultivation as they had been facing harassment from local people and the police in Karnataka.

They told presspersons here that they had been providing security to their workers. The unnatural deaths were isolated incidents and all the farmers should not be blamed for them.

Better prospects

Targeting a better prospect, ginger farmers from Kerala, especially Wayanad, have been trying their luck on the ginger farms in neighbouring States, especially Karnataka. Ginger cultivation using high-tech farming technology is lucrative as the crop can be harvested in a short time and the produce fetches a high price.

Data with the Ginger Growers Association, Wayanad, a collective of the farmers in the neighbouring States, show that 11,000 farmers have been engaged in cultivation in Karnataka. At least 1,000 new farmers from north Kerala have reached Karnataka this year, Georgekutty Mukkotumannil, president of the association, told The Hindu.

“We have cultivated ginger on nearly 10,000 acres of land this year in Coorg [Kodagu], Hassan, Chikmangalur, Mysore and Chamarajnagar districts of Karnataka,” he said.

The main lure for them is the remunerative prices since 2006, Mr. Gerogekutty said.

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Team from State to visit ginger farms in Karnataka

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