Paddy cultivation is close to the heart of the traditional Coorg farmer. Every farming household grows rice, mostly for domestic consumption. Land suitable for rice cultivation is called ‘bael’ or ‘bhoomi’ in local parlance, and almost revered.Traditionally, tilling of the fields was performed using farm animals such as bulls. Currently, tractors have replaced farm animals as regards this operation, though the traditional method of tilling continues to be operational.

Rice cultivation involves the use of a large manual workforce. Operations such as harvesting and threshing continue to be manually carried out by a large section of farmers. Introduction of modern equipment has lightened the load to an extent and some farmers are learning to use machines for operations such as sowing, harvesting and threshing.

Rice being the major diet for most families, it was very important to ensure a good harvest. The yield has to be good enough to ensure that the family had sufficient quantity in stock to tide over, up until the next harvest.

A Paddy Field

Most households in Coorg had paddy bins, called pathaya, made of wood to store the paddy required for a year’s consumption of the immediate family and the workforce supporting the farm. Much of the farm workforce traditionally resided on the farm and the onus was on the farm owner to see that his workforce had at least the minimum nutrition necessary for the tough labour.

Though such paddy bins used earlier to stock paddy have slowly faded out of existence, with the proliferation of retail outlets, the historical significance of having paddy stored is very crucial in the psyche of the local farming family.

Paddy cultivation is a 9-10 month marathon, commencing with the tilling of the field, at the receipt of the first showers in April each year, up to the completion of the harvest during January of the following year.

A Stretch of Paddy

In times bygone, paddy was common currency. Paddy was as good as the rupiah and wages were paid in the form of paddy. Much satisfaction was gathered from the fact that, the family at the end of this effort has sufficient rice in store for the next 12 months until up to the next harvest.

Paddy cultivation synchronizes with two crucial festivals of Coorg – ‘Kail Polud’ and ‘Puthari’.’ ‘Kail Polud’ signifies the completion of paddy transplanting in September with the occasion marked by prayers offered to the tools traditionally used in cultivation. The Puthari festival announces that the produce is ready for harvest. Puthari is celebrated in splendour. A good harvest would mean extra income by sale of the extra stocks.

Traditionally much of the paddy cultivated in Coorg was organic. Even today, over 25% of the paddy cultivated in Coorg can easily be certified as organic as several marginal paddy farmers continue to use only cow dung and other natural fertilizers to enrich their fields.

Mr. Achayya Mukattira

Mr. Achayya Mukattira is a planter engaged in Corporate farming in South India for about a decade. He has worked with crops such as Tea, Coffee, Pepper, and Cardamom and possesses sound knowledge regarding landscaping and ornamental plant culture. He has been a farmer since 1996, tending a small ancestral coffee plantation in a village called Arapattu, in South Kodagu. He spends a major portion of his time on his farm and feels ‘one’ with nature during these occasions.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 at 3:38 PM and is filed under Culture, Farming, Flora. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.