In Kerala, paddy production and area under paddy cultivation have been shrinking over the years, but farmers at Mayyil village panchayat in Kannur district have reversed their fortunes.
Paddy cultivation had turned into an unremunerative activity mainly due to increasing labour costs, low yields and poor returns from the final produce. This resulted in farmers shifting to other crops and leaving paddy fields untilled.
When fallow paddy fields grew at Mayyil, the local self-governing body and agriculture department made its first intervention in 2016. The village panchayat launched a Total Rice Campaign or “Sampoorna Nellu Krishi” to revive paddy farming.
P Jayaraj, Director of Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) in Kannur said “the initial step was to improve the soil health to show that soil treated properly with required nutrients can work wonders. With the help of a few farmers, we went for scientific paddy cultivation on a demonstration basis. It yielded a bumper crop, igniting keen interest and confidence among farmers’’.
Read more of this in a report by Shaju Philip published in The Indian Express... (Link given below)
