Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
4. R ice paddy plots in Padayeti. A lier for a CPI(M)candidate
for the 2011 election is pasted to the tree in the foreground.
Photo by the author.
reporter extolled these new ponds as part of Padayeti's “second indepen-
dence,” referring to the fact that the ponds diminished area farmers' re-
liance on Green Revolution technologies, such as irrigation from water
sources farther afield. Locally based water sources provided the rice farm-
ers with more latitude in determining their cropping paterns and seed
choices each growing season.9
We then toured the rice paddy fields that had just been planted with
seeds a few weeks earlier (fig. 4). The Biodiversity Board had supplied
several of these farmers with seeds, including
navara
, a medicinal red rice
traditionally grown throughout Kerala. As we walked along the raised
footpaths between the plots of rice, Suresh marveled at the changes he
