Socio-cultural Processes and Livelihood Patterns at Tirurangadi - CDS

like thekkan, otiyan, nayaru, vellari, and kuttyatan were sown for mundakan crop, and
thekkancheera, thonnuran, pannaran and nakara were sown for puncha. The choice of the
seed depended on the actual conditions like the amount of rainfall, the actual quantity of
water and manure in the field, the level of salination. Thus the variety of seeds gave the
farmer a number of options, given the natural conditions, to maintain an optimum level of
production. But, as the demand for increasing the productivity of soil mounted, the
farmers began to look for methods to achieve it. It became particularly necessary for the
small producer, as increased productivity was the only method before him to generate a
surplus that he could sell in the market. We have already seen that even when the prices
of grains rose in earlier times the small holder could never make use of it, as he never had
the surplus production that could reach the market. It was in this context that the high
yielding variety of seeds popularized by the Agriculture Department through the NES
Blocks became popular.
The HYV seeds such as IR-8 were used by the farmers from the sixties, with remarkable
effects. The old farmers remembered that there was a major upsurge in cultivation during
the late sixties, due to the new variety of seeds, effects of Manittampara Anaicut and the
new irrigation schemes, and also due to the application of chemical fertilizers on an
already fertile soil. The success of the first innovators with seed and fertilizers
encouraged other farmers to take up modern cultivation methods. The surplus produce
can then be sold in the market for purchasing other necessities or investing in cultivation
itself. Similarly, paramba lands were used for cultivating marketable varieties like
coconut, for which modern fertilizers could be used, and those which yielded less income
from the market, or were not promoted in any form by the Government, like ginger and
gingelly fell out of favor. There was also the disposition among the cultivators that
‘those readily available in the market cheaply need not be produced’. Difference in
cultural tastes also might have influenced production. For example, the spread of wheat