Kerala ‘no’ to Pepsi plan for contract farming

Qatar's top selling English newspaper Gulf Times today published the following news item :
Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram
Cola giant PepsiCo will not be allowed to take its successful contract farming experience to Kerala, a minister said yesterday.
“The government policy is against any contract farming which uses hybrid seeds or genetically monitored products. So at no cost will we give sanction to Pepsi for contract farming,” state’s Agriculture Minister Mullakkara Ratnakaran said.
PepsiCo’s contract farming initiative had proved to be a huge success in India, especially in the other communist-ruled state West Bengal, with productivity increasing multifold which benefited both the farmers and consumers.
Last year, West Bengal witnessed a bumper potato production of 9.5mn tonnes in five districts registering a year-on-year growth of 73%. Wholesale prices in Kolkata nosedived to Rs300 a quintal and retail prices dropped to Rs6-8 a kg, less than half that in Kerala.
The food and beverages company also provides technical and logistical support besides helping farmers to get soft loan to buy the seeds and equipment and assured fixed rates.
Last month, Kerala’s industries secretary T Balakrishnan had said that Pepsi helped Indian farmers increase tomato productivity from 4.2 tonnes an acre to a 58 tonnes within ten years and this would be replicated with paddy in Kerala.
Kerala’s food production suffered due to fragmentation of farmlands after land reforms and opposition from politicians to mechanised farming, forcing the state to depend on its neighbours for its food needs.
“The company has introduced a new technology that helps paddy farmers to increase productivity and reduce water usage by one-third. This is going to be introduced in Palakkad this year,” Balakrishnan had said in the presence of Industries Minister Elamaram Kareem who nodded in agreement.
Balakrishnan had landed himself in trouble earlier when he said that Kerala was the only state in the country where the bottling plant of Coke was closed down.
Ratnakaran, who represents the Communist party of India (CPI), the second largest partner of the Left Democratic Front led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), made it clear that contract farming was against the government’s policy.
“He (Balakrishnan) is in charge of industries and he is free to air opinions in that sector but as far as agriculture is concerned we will go only by approved policies of the government,” Ratnakaran told reporters in Kozhikode.