Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
have actually benefited people, and that the switch from labor-intensive
crops to less intensive ones is the result of other factors, including changes
in foreign and national investment in agriculture.
57
All agree, though, that
the amount of cash crop cultivation in Kerala has indeed increased. In
contrast, the production of staple crops, such as rice, decreased in the late
twentieth century.58 These trends feed into the debate among Kerala's or-
ganic farmers over whether they should grow staples for local consumers
or cash crops for foreigners, as I detail in chapter 6.
Additionally, several environmental problems plague Kerala: defor-
estation, soil erosion, and clean water shortages due to pesticide-
intensive
agriculture.59 As Sugathakumari complained at the 2010 biodiversity con-
ference: “You can't even drink our coconut water without geting sick.”
Many environmentalists also worry that Kerala's biodiversity is severely
threatened by a range of factors, from human encroachment to climate
change. Illegal sand-
mining, the destruction of wetlands, rapid urban-
ization, and poaching are among the other environmental troubles facing
the state today.
Kerala's political parties are reacting to the state's environmental and
agrarian problems. For instance, concerned by widespread shrinkage
of paddy fields and the resulting decrease in state self-suiciency in rice
production, the LDF-led government enacted the Kerala Conservation
of Paddy Land and Wetland Act of 2008, “an Act to conserve the paddy
land and wetland and to restrict the conversion or reclamation thereof, in
order to promote growth in the agricultural sector and to sustain the eco-
logical system, in the State of Kerala.”
This act builds on laws promoting
land reform from the 1960s and 1970s.
More notable, however, were the unveiling of the state's organic farm-
ing policy in 2010 and the state's growing organic farming movement.
Both grew out of Kerala's history of political mobilization, as well as from
the openness of the state government and society to direct democracy, in-
stitutionalized in programs like the People's Plan. Kerala's organic farm-
ing initiatives now have the potential to ameliorate the agrarian problems
facing the state.
W hile Kerala's contemporary social life and politics are more compli-
cated than its reputation as a “model” suggests, years of social movements,
