ALAPPUZHA: The Pathiyoor panchayat in the district has successfully cultivated ragi (finger millet), which was once widely grown in Kerala as traditional crop along with paddy.
Forty women undertook its cultivation under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme at 19 wards in the panchayat, some 40 km from Alappuzha, and it is all set for harvesting.
The crop was introduced three months ago by the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (ICAR-CPCRI), Kayamkulam, in association with the panchayat.
The women who did not know anything about the crop took up it as a challenge and toiled hard to make the sandy soil fertile.
The panchayat was the only one chosen by the CPCRI as part of ICAR-funded Farmer FIRST Programme (FFP) to improve the farmers’ livelihood.
Mr V. Prabhakaran, panchayat president, praised the women for making it a success. The panchayat has to find only land and human resources and it has decided to expand the farming area.
“Millets are the future small hardy crops with big impact on food and nutritional security of the common man in a world of climate change and risk. Hence, we took up ragi cultivation in the coconut plantations.
The CPCRI has provided seeds and scientific expertise free of cost to the farmers. We taught them scientific tips about spacing, weeding, harvesting and participatory farming. The women here have succeeded in producing cowpea (vigna unguiculata) as participatory crop.
The ragi varieties were given from the All-India Coordinated Research project on Small Millets- ICAR (UAS, Bangalore),” says P. Anithakumari, principal scientist, ICAR-CPCRI, regional station, Kayamkulam.
P. Shylaja, a farmer, said, “whenever we noticed an issue on our crop, we shared it with scientists through WhatsApp. Their advice saved the plants from pest attacks. The panchayat has promised high-power pumps for easy irrigation. The periodical inspection by the scientists encouraged us to do more. We are now looking out for the commercial sale of ragi,” she said.
