Kerala farmers cut cardamom need for labour

With a big shortage of labour in the cardamom plantations of Kerala, a new planting method which requires much fewer hands has been welcomed by growers.

Developed by a farmer based in Kattappana, Idukki district, it does not require large pits for planting the cardamom suckers. The pitless planting method is what Regimon (‘Reji’) Joseph Njallani, founder of the method, calls it. In the method he developed, the sucker is placed over the planting spot and mud mounted around.

He told Business Standard this method had been implemented in 100 acres of plantations during the past two months and more farmers will be shifting to the new method during the next planting season. Reji had started a demonstration plot in Kattappana and the response is encouraging. With Idukki district, home to half the national annual output of 10,000 tonnes, facing an acute shortage of hands, farmers in and around there are shifting readily to the new method. Reji says the traditional style of planting requires 124 labourers for each hector (1.5 acres) in a season and the labour cost alone would be Rs 30,000. This can be reduced by Rs 24,000 through the new method, as only 24 labourers are needed for planting the same area.