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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Kerala's rice bowl is submerged. But for its farmers, paddy is still everything -Shwetha E George

Kerala's rice bowl is submerged. But for its farmers, paddy is still everything -Shwetha E George

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published Published on Sep 30, 2018   modified Modified on Sep 30, 2018
-The Hindu

‘Water hasn’t even receded from my yard yet. How can we start farming in October?’

On either side of the Alappuzha-Changanassery road is a vast expanse of water with an odd canoe bobbing about, or a precariously leaning electrical pole. But these are not the backwaters.

I am in Kuttanad, the rice bowl of Kerala, but there is not a paddy crop in sight. Farmers in this area have for generations welcomed — albeit with some trepidation — the annual flood. It after all brings in rich, red soil, called akkal, from the hills to the fields.

But this was no farmer-friendly flood. It was a deluge that destroyed everything in its wake. More than a month later, all you see is water everywhere.

“When I saw the flood water entering our paddy fields, I realised instantly that the only thing we could save was our own lives,” says Jessamma, 42, who lives in Chempumpuram village in Alappuzha, where a kalkettu (quay) generally prevents flood waters from entering. But not this year. “Our field was under water in seconds and the water started entering the house.” Jesamma took one last look at her inundated field before swimming across neck-deep water to the rescue boat with her children and husband.

She knew she had, like most farmers in the Kuttanad area, spread across Alappuzha and Kottayam districts, lost her entire crop just days before harvest.

Please click here to read more.

The Hindu, 29 September, 2018, https://www.thehindu.com/society/keralas-rice-bowl-is-submerged-but-for-its-farmers-paddy-is-still-everything/article25068985.ece?homepage=true


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