With the Centre sniping down its PDS rice quota by 4000 tonne, Kerala has decided to make the best out of its own partly spoilt harvest paddy stocks, milling it and selling it at the market price of the day. Usually, the milling of paddy is undertaken by the Centre.
A desperate remedy, this is hardly adequate to meet the state’s 40-lakh tonne per year annual rice offtake. Kerala produces only 6.35 lakh tonne per year. In a government to government deal, Andhra Pradesh has promised 5000 tonne in buffer stocks to Kerala. Supplyco – the state government’s grocery arm – has offered to procure paddy from farmers, milling it to sell the rice under its `Sabari’ rice brand. This is for two lakh tonne paddy.
Forced to serve the twin-ends of farmer and consumer simultaneously, Supplyco has detailed a plan to buy paddy at Rs 10 per kilo from farmer and sell it at an average price of Rs 16 per kilo. Andhra rice varieties like `Jaya’ sell in Kerala retail market at about Rs 20-21 per kilo. Supplyco’s shortfall will be subsidised later, says state agriculture minister Mullakkara Ratnakaran. This is easier said than done, when one looks at the paddy havoc in Kuttanad, the central Kerala rice belt. It was on about 17,000 tonne harvest-ready paddy that summer rain fury had left its damage. Many heaps readied for threshing and winnowing started forming humid spores, some grains even going into sprouts.
The Kerala government plans to convert these sprouts to cattle fodder. Farmers face shortage of both harvest hands and harvesting machines. Where 140 machines are needed, only 40 are available, says Alapuzha collector VK Balakrishnan.
Fearing the political heat of farm crisis, machine-owners in Tamil Nadu are hesitant to rent out their harvestors to Central Kerala paddy farmers. For Supplyco, which undertook the herculean task of milling the salvaged crop, the next big challenge is that it does not own mills or have mill supervisors with technical expertise.