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G.K. Nair

KOCHI, March 6

VAYALAR in Alappuzha district has been chosen as one of the centres for an international project aimed at developing sustainable coconut-based income-generating technologies in rural communities.

The three-year project sponsored by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), Rome, and the International Coconut Genetic Resources Network (COGENT), Malaysia, is aimed at mitigating the hardship experienced by coconut farmers as a result of decline in productivity and profitability of coconut farming.

The implementing agency for the Vayalar community is Peekay Tree Crops Development Foundation, a Kochi-based NGO headed by Mr P.K. Thampan. The project aims to employ a three-pronged development strategy for poverty alleviation in the coconut sector.

The essential features of the strategy are: Increasing yields and incomes by deploying through community-managed nurseries high-value, multi-purpose and adapted coconut varieties; increasing incomes of the coconut farmers and socio-economically disadvantaged rural women through the production of high-value products from the coconut kernel, husk, shell, water, wood and leaves and identifying and promoting suitable varieties for these uses; and increasing food security and income per unit area per unit time through intercropping and livestock/fodder production. Apart from Vayalar, the other two other communities selected in India are Kasargode and Ariankuppam in Pondicherry. The total allotment for the three communities in the country is $54,750 over the three-year period ending December 2004, official sources told Business Line. The implementing agency for Kasargode and Ariankuppam is Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPCRI), Kasargode, they said.

The project site in Vayalar Panchayat was finalised after subjecting the biophysical endowment and the socio-economic features of the area. The community comprises the farm-households of Vayalar Panchayat, which depend mostly on coconut farming and the related processing activities for livelihood.

Coconut farming in the Panchayat is concentrated in homesteads of size below one hectare and the total area devoted to coconut is 925 hectares. Intercropping with vegetables, banana, root and tuber crops etc. is practised in about 74 per cent of the holdings, with 38 per cent having animal components such as cow, buffalo and goat and also poultry in the system, they said.

There are about 478 small-scale coir factories where products like coir mats, matting, etc., are produced. Around 45 per cent of the farm households derive their income and employment from coir-related activities.

Toddy tapping is also one of the income generating activities, but is practised only in less than 10 per cent of the holdings, they pointed out.

Of the households numbering around 4,000, about 560 belong to socially and economically backward scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities.

The implementation of the project in Vayalar began in July 2002 and is progressing well, they said. The purpose of the project, Mr Thampan said, is to identify and demonstrate through people's participation the alternatives available before the members of the Vayalar community for augmenting on-farm income and employment in the coconut sector.

The identified alternatives that have been taken up for demonstration are intensive integrated farming under coconut, efficient utilisation of coconut products at the arm household and community levels for value addition and market promotion for the diverse coconut based products and farm produces emanating from the community.

The members of the community are empowered through a series of training programmes to enable them to become effective participants in and beneficiaries of the project.

As the funds earmarked for the different activities form part of a micro-credit system, it will be possible for the Vayalar Community Development Centre (VCDC), the community based organisation, to sustain the activities on its own even after the period of the ongoing project is over, Mr Thampan said.

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