Kerala govt to mark special paddy zones

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Taking a serious note of a sharp fall in area under paddy cultivation, the Kerala government on Friday said it would soon declare traditional rice producing areas in Palakkad, Thrissur and Alapuzha districts as Special Protected Zones.

Granting special status to areas like Kuttanad in Alapuzha district is meant to arrest paddy fields getting converted for commercial crops and building purposes pausing a grim threat to the state's food security and tilting ecological balance, state Agriculture Minister Mullakkara Ratnakaran informed the Kerala Assembly.

Creation of special zones would help the state agencies to co-ordinate rice production, promotion and support schemes and their quick delivery to farmers. As part of this, group farming would also be encouraged, he said in a written reply.

The state's paddy base had shrunk so seriously over the years as to touch 2.76 lakh hectares by 2005-06, due to a combination of reasons like steep increase in cost of cultivation, paucity of labour, reclamation of paddy fields and absence of processing and value-addition infrastructure.

Ratnakaran said the government had also plans to come out with an organic farming policy soon.