Advances in Life Sciences
Year : 2016, Volume : 5, Issue : 8
First page : ( 2993) Last page : ( 2998)
Print ISSN : 2278-3849. Online ISSN : 2278-4705.

Analysis of Trends and Problems of Paddy Cultivation in Kerala

Nithin K. N.

Dept. of Agribusiness Management, UAS, Dharwad, Karnataka-580005

Online published on 15 December, 2016.

Abstract

The State Agriculture Statistics 2012 reveals that after 2008, Kerala lost more than 25, 000 ha rice fields. Paddy, which was the first choice among the crops in 1970s, has been pushed to the third position after coconut and rubber. In this background a study has been conducted to analyse the present scenario of paddy cultivation in Kerala and to understand the problemsfacedby the paddy cultivators. Both primary and secondary data were used for the study. Primary data was collected from thirty paddy cultivators of Thrissur district of Kerala who were selected based on convenience sampling technique. The secondary data was collected from the website of Government of Kerala. The area under cultivation of paddy in Kerala declined with a negative compound annual growth rate of 4.35 per cent from the year 2003–04 to 2012–13. The coefficient of variation for area is high for Kerala (13.89%) compared to India (2.86%). The production of paddy in Kerala as such declined over the same time period on account of reduced area under cultivation with a negative growth of 1.91 per cent. It is revealed from the study that Palakkad, Alappuzha and Thrissur are the major paddy growing districts of Kerala and they altogether contributes about 71 per cent of the total paddy produced in the state. It is revealed from the season wise analysis that highest contribution towards the production is from Mundakan (winter) season followed by Virippuv (autumn) and Punchav (summer). The results of the Garrett's ranking technique showed that the major problems faced by farmers were shortage of labour, high labour cost and fragmented landholdings.

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Keywords

Trends, Problems, Paddy Cultivation, Kerala.

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