Kerala: Of monkeys and nuts

Yesterday's Indian Express, Cochin Edition carried an article on Joseph Alapatt. I know this gentleman for four decades and more. As far as I am aware of, he has done more for the coconut farmers of Kerala than anyone else, both personally and as Chairman of the Indian Coconut Council and in several other official capacities.

Alapatt's love affair with coconuts started at an young age though he began his career as a Director of the Catholic Syrian Bank, Trichur, a major financial institution of Kerala. His ancestral properties include a large area of coconuts.

The coconut farming sector in Kerala is in doldrums.This is not a sudden development. The diminishing returns scenario began years ago. One of the major reasons for this decline is the labor situation.

The yield from coconut trees is steadily decreasing. From over 40 nuts per tree per year a few years ago, I believe that the production has drooped to below 25 nuts. Two reasons for this are (1) the planting materials are often sub-standard because of unhealthy nursery practices, and (2) due to high cost and nonavailability of labor, the seasonal attention that is required is not given.

The price of coconuts in Kerala remains uneconomic. The support price is unrealistic. There is no meaningful government backing. JosephAlapat says that in the Philippines, the coconut portfolio comes under the President and in Sri Lanka there is a separate Minister for coconuts. He also says that the prices are kept low in Kerala by the copra mafia.

Before the coconuts can be made into copra, they have to be plucked from the trees. This is a process that has to be done 7 to 8 times in an year. A particular community attends to this job. There are not enough of them to meet the demand and those available ask for exorbitant wages.

Once, during his frequent trips to coconut growing countries, Joseph Alapatt found that in Indonesia monkeys are trained to pluck coconuts. He requested the Minister concerned to send a squad of monkeys to Kerala on a trial basis. According to the article, the Minister replied "The labor leaders in Kerala would kill the monkeys as soon as the animals reached that state"!

That is Kerala.

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Also see:

Un-ploughed lies my land

Un-ploughed lies my land

Want to fill in your paddy fields in Kerala, or leave them uncultivated? You can. Only problem is that you may be put behind the bars for 1-3 years and slapped with a fine of Rs.50,000 to Rs.100,000. That is what a new law on the anvil provides for, according to the newspaper reports. The idea is to prevent the increasing tendency in the State to reclaim rice growing areas for other purposes or leave them unutilized.

No ‘Capitalist’ worth his name would leave an asset non-operative if he can make money out of it. Even nationalized banks (a hang up from ‘socialistic pattern of society’ days) are trying to reduce their non-performing assets (NPA). Why should the Kerala muthalalis (landowning or business magnates) ignore their lands? One reason is sheer capitalistic outlook – there is no money in it. But there is a more valid ground to which the politicians turn a Nelson’s eye.

Even if a fool of a muthalai decides to cultivate his fields incurring loss, out of patriotism or whatever, he still has a problem. There is an acute shortage of workmen. Offering exorbitant wages do not attract labor anymore; very few like to work on land, particularly the rice fields. In major paddy growing areas of Kerala, like Kuttanad and Palakkad, workers and agricultural machinery (for years the left parties fought the introduction of tractors) are imported from neighboring Tamil Nadu. That is likely to stop too because the wages in that State have gone up recently.

By law, a muthalali, or anyone for that matter, can hold only 12 acres of paddy/coconut lands in Kerala – a great comedown from 1000+ acres. Weeds grow in the rice fields which were once the pride of a muthalali. Coconut cultivation is almost on its death bed because of low productivity and uneconomic prices.

After staying a couple days at my cousin, John Tharakan’s home stay (http://www.ayanathouse.com/), Peter Wonacott wrote about the problems of coconut growers in Kerala in The Wall Street Journal (March 10, 2007; Page P5). The title of the article is ‘India's Nuttiest Destination’- meaning coconuts of course!

In the last picture what you see in the foreground is tall grass not rice plants.

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All photos copyright Karthiki, TP. Click on them for enlarged view.

Also see:

Caste System: Is Kerala still a madhouse?