Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
One farmer in Kerala, Neela, explained to me in detail how the waning
output of her coffee bushes was affecting her quality of life. She calculated
that when she had first started growing coffee on her husband's land after
their wedding day, decades ago, she harvested a hundred sacks (weighing
ity-
four kilograms each) worth of coffee beans from their four acres of
land. In 2011, however, she only collected thirty-ive sacks from the same
land and plants. Neela speculated that the productivity had declined be-
cause of multiple factors, including soil exhaustion.
I asked Neela what she planned to do, given her current situation.
“W hat will we do?” she repeated musingly, and then answered, “That's
why we're not puting work into our land. We just take what we can get.”
She and her husband had decided that taking care of their coffee bushes
was no longer a worthwhile investment. They could not afford to pay
several laborers to help maintain their crops or prune their coffee bushes
during the short window when the trimming of coffee bushes had to occur.
Neela's story was not uncommon. Several other farmers with whom I
spent time in Kerala admited to neglecting the maintenance of their cof-
fee bushes, to avoid labor costs at a time of low returns for commodities.
Another farmer disclosed to me that he cut down all of his coffee bushes
in frustration, only to then lose his black pepper to wilt. Unlike others,
this farmer was lucky to own several hectares of land, and he was able to
receive income from other cash crops, as well as additional income from
a side practice of medicinal consulting, which prevented a financial crisis
for his family.
Neela, on the other hand, did not have as diversified an agricultural
operation to keep her afloat for multiple years. As a result, I asked Neela
a few more questions to understand why she had specifically decided to
forgo the upkeep of her coffee bushes.
“We don't get enough coffee from our land to pay the costs for a year,”
she answered, and then listed her expenditures around coffee: sprinklers,
wages for laborers, and fertilizers. She added, “We don't get anything to
pay for our household costs.” She had therefore decided to use any spare
money to buy food for herself and her family, instead of on upkeep of her
cash crops. Nevertheless, the quality of the food the family ate had de-
clined, since she, her husband, and their only son could not afford to buy
