The agricultural sector of Kerala has undergone wide-ranging changes in terms of ownership of land, cropping pattern, cultivation practices, technology and intensity of cultivation during the past three decades. This study purports to examine the changes, unravel the underlying factors and discuss their impact on the rural population. The approach of studies on agricultural changes has been, till very recently, to capture ‘physical reality’ and ‘objectivity’. Realisation has lately come to researchers that ‘personal’ or ‘subjective’ reality is also significant. The perception of the rural people on whom agricultural changes directly impinge is therefore the focus of the present exercise. The study is carried out in Pallichal panchayat, a suburb of Thiruvananthapuram City.
Two approaches are used in the study; (i) a statistical method to assess the existing socio-economic condition of the people in the study area, and (ii) a participatory learning method implemented by a multi-displinary team with the participation of local people.
The main objectives of the study are (i) to identify the factors for the changes in cropping pattern and farm practices, (ii) to assess the socio-economic impact of the change in cropping pattern and (iii) to study the inter-relationship between depletion of natural resources and living conditions of the communities depending on them.
The study points out that change in cropping pattern cannot be analysed in isolation from changes taking place in the farming system determined by factors such as land ownership, access to resources, labour relations, livelihood strategies, farming practices, traditions and culture. The main causes of the changes may be grouped into (i) population growth and change in family structure, (ii) state intervention through land reforms, acquisition of land, deforestation, public distribution system etc. (iii) modernisation and commercialisation of agriculture, (iv) labour market conditions, and (v) price factors. The impacts of changes are (i) economic (changes in production, farm income, employment, women’s participation etc.); (ii) social and cultural (cultivator-labour relation, negative attitude to agriculture, loss of traditional skills, etc.) and (iii) environmental (loss of local varieties of seeds and breeds, and trees, receding water tables, decrease in biodiversity, etc.)