Rice is the staple food of Keralites.In the earlier days rice used to be cultivated almost in all parts of Kerala with two crops,Mundakan and Viruppu in Pokali rice fields from Alleppey to Trichur.These Pokali rice variety is quite tall going upto 160 to 200 cm.The rice is supposed to be highly nutritious and even have medicinal properties just like njavara rice from Palghat,which is used as marunnu kanji in the month of Karkidakom in the Malayalam calendar just before Chingam,the month of Onam.During the in between period, the rice fields will have smaller crops like vellarikka, mathanga, Thanni mathan, cheera and Payar.I will try to give details on all these separately.
Major large scale cultivation of rice was in Kuttanad, Trichur and Palghat areas. Large scale plantations in under water level at Kuttanad were owned by a private party called Muricken. At that time Kuttanad was even called Rice storage (Nellara) of Kerala.
Kerala state has a peculiar style in that politics rules above interests of the State and its people. We have stoppage of all work called as Hartal which does not give any benefit to Kerala state and its people except miseries for all for nearly three months of the year mercifully celebrated one day at a time. This is mainly given as a torture for poor unorganized people of Kerala mainly by communists who claim to work for the common people.
Similarly they have destroyed paddy cultivation in Kuttanad by taking over paddy fields owned by Muricken and now there is very little of paddy cultivation in Kuttanad.Kole paddy fields of Trichur are also being converted into filled up land. All over Kerala paddy fields are being filled up as it is increasingly becoming difficult to do rice cultivation mainly due to non availability of workers as in Kerala everybody want to do only white collar job especially when they work in Kerala.
Harvesting of rice again became a problem as the political leadership was against use of machinery in the absence of man power. Now reluctantly they are allowing use of machines for harvesting of rice
Pictures show rice fields and harvesting by machine
Major large scale cultivation of rice was in Kuttanad, Trichur and Palghat areas. Large scale plantations in under water level at Kuttanad were owned by a private party called Muricken. At that time Kuttanad was even called Rice storage (Nellara) of Kerala.
Kerala state has a peculiar style in that politics rules above interests of the State and its people. We have stoppage of all work called as Hartal which does not give any benefit to Kerala state and its people except miseries for all for nearly three months of the year mercifully celebrated one day at a time. This is mainly given as a torture for poor unorganized people of Kerala mainly by communists who claim to work for the common people.
Similarly they have destroyed paddy cultivation in Kuttanad by taking over paddy fields owned by Muricken and now there is very little of paddy cultivation in Kuttanad.Kole paddy fields of Trichur are also being converted into filled up land. All over Kerala paddy fields are being filled up as it is increasingly becoming difficult to do rice cultivation mainly due to non availability of workers as in Kerala everybody want to do only white collar job especially when they work in Kerala.
Harvesting of rice again became a problem as the political leadership was against use of machinery in the absence of man power. Now reluctantly they are allowing use of machines for harvesting of rice
Pictures show rice fields and harvesting by machine
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