FARMER MIGRATION AND AGRARIAN TRANSFORMATION IN KERALA: Impacts on the local economy, society and the agrarian landscape in the erstwhile Malabar Region

Abstract

This paper attempts to examine the process of peasant migration from Travancore to Malabar and the resultant agrarian transformation triggered by the development monoculture and the socio-economic impacts on the migrant households as well as the long-term implications on the agrarian landscape and ecology of the region. The specific objectives of the study were to: (a) trace the demographic and socio-economic profile of the migrant households as well as the occupational shift and the status of ownership of household assets in the erstwhile Malabar villages; (b) understand the dynamics of migration induced agrarian transformation, including the catalytic role played by various agencies; and (c) reflect on the implications of the agrarian transformation on the agroecological landscape and sustainable farm livelihoods of the migrant households. The paper brings out the emergence of rubber as the dominant land use, which already has impacted in terms of shrinkage of farm lands grown with other food as well as cash crops in the migrant villages. Though expansion of rubber per se, may not have caused a decline of other commercial or food crops in the region, the several advantages that rubber enjoyed, had invariably influenced a majority of small and marginal farmers to grow rubber and thereby rationalize their farming choices. It appears that the institutional as well as policy interventions followed by the Rubber Board and other crop promotional agencies, including the State Agriculture Department have been mutually exclusive and hence, a major segment of the farmers in the state have always been attracted by the farmer friendly institutional support systems provided by the Rubber Board, which in fact, turned out to be pervasive in terms of promoting rubber monoculture. From a sustainable agriculture development perspective, the paper calls for effective collaborations and co-ordination between various crop- promotional agencies in Kerala, such as the Rubber Board, Spices Board, Coconut Development Board, Kerala Horticulture Development Board, Coffee Board, the State Agriculture Department, etc to come together and devise a long-term agricultural development policies and strategies for the state in general and the Malabar region in particular.