Socio-cultural Processes and Livelihood Patterns at Tirurangadi - CDS

problems in continuing as farmers, and so are larger farmers who are prepared to invest
sufficiently on land and labor. In the course of our investigations we came across both
these varieties of farmers. But the large majority of farmers were those who sincerely
believed that agriculture is not remunerative, primarily because of the high costs of labor
and uncertainties of the market.
From the end of the seventies, another trend began to set in, the tendency to move away
from paddy cultivation. The process was obviously determined by the tendencies in
agricultural prices, which showed that profit motive came to dominate agricultural
production. Unlike paddy, coconut had continued to earn remunerative prices, and as a
result there was a substantial shift to coconut in the area. Coconut was already being
cultivated on a large scale in the paramba lands, and now a number of new landholders
began to shift to Coconut. Interestingly, the low-lying regions that are normally water-
logged were made suitable for coconut cultivation by raising the ground, and in areas like
Vallikkunnu, the salinity of the soil was an additional advantage for planting coconut.
This showed that the farmers were willing to invest, provided there was a clear prospect
for remunerative prices. However, it should be noted that the rise of coconut did not
result in the corresponding increase in the work on coconut fiber, which appears to have
declined in the same period. However, there has been an increase of oil mills, and a
number of minor ‘copra fields’. Mostly, coconut appears to have been collected by
middlemen and taken to larger angadis. Other similar ventures were in plantains, and
areca. Plantain is a direct food product that has been sold inside and outside the region,
and areca is normally taken to major angadis like Calicut.
The impact of this tendency is already visible. As low-lying areas have been reclaimed
for coconut production, the topsoil has undergone a clear change. In the Coconut areas
the topsoil remains ‘in state’ and is fed by salt and urea necessary for the growth of
coconut trees and the actual water content is kept lower than a paddy field. When a paddy