Muthalamada, in Kerala, is the biggest centre of mango production in the country. Exports of mangoes alone are worth Rs200 crore per season. But this year the rain gods have refused to bless the trees in the right time.
The closest thing one can think of comparing with Chammanampathy in Muthalamada in Kerala’s Palakkad district is Comala, the place where dead men grow sick of heat and loneliness, created and described by Mexican novelist Juan Rulfo. Still, Muthalamada is an economically important place as it is the biggest centre of mango production in the country. The topography of Muthalamada is disappointing with the sun’s heat hanging in the atmosphere like a cruel and permanent feature over the anemic vegetation that grow over a thin layer of sun-beaten, dry and dusty soil beneath which the earth is a gigantic mass of black rock.
Chammanampathy, an inalienable part of Muthalamada (crocodile den, literally), is hot round-the-year, but I would visit it religiously in summer because of three reasons: The mangoes, the people and the imposing peaks of the Anamalai-Parambikulam forest ranges that guard it on the south.
Mango decides everything in and for Muthalamada, lying on Kerala’s border with Tamil Nadu and where bushy, green trees bearing the king of fruits grow in about 20,000 acres of land beaten round the year by the merciless sun. From the middle of February to about June, Muthalamada would be abuzz with activity as thousands of mango-pickers fondle the trees with their bare hands to pluck mangoes as per their classes meant for exports under the strict watch of contractors, hundreds of trucks rushing in and out of the mango tree gardens, dozens of parking centres becoming noisy as hundreds of hands would check, recheck and double-check fruits to spot even the smallest specks on them, to ensure that each packet contains mangos of same size and to ensure that only the best got into the baskets meant to be shipped abroad, especially the Gulf.
Exports of mangoes alone are at least worth Rs200 crore per season. But this year Muthalamada tells a different story, a sad story as the rain gods refused to bless the trees in the right time. “Don’t be surprised if you read reports of suicides by mango contractors in Muthalamada in the coming days. The situation is that bad,” says Ramachandran, a Muthalamada resident, who (“fortunately”) stayed away from the business this year.
Muthalamada is a place trapped in a rain-shadow zone as far as the southwestern monsoon, which accounts for 75 percent of all the rains Kerala gets a year, is concerned. The results are that wells there do not hold rain water, the soil remains parched round the year and there is no sub-surface water storage and farmers — mainly those who cultivate mango and some who try their luck in coconuts, guava, etc — are forced to drill into the very womb of the earth for water to irrigate their crops.
The situation is complicated by granite quarries, the number of which is going up every passing year. As a result of all this, the groundwater table dips so fast that wells have become meaningless and drinking water a precious commodity. “Just three years ago, we used to hit water when the bore drill reached 125-130 ft,” says Ravi Nair, middle-aged man in the quarry business at the nearby Kollengode town. “But it is now impossible to get water even at 350-400 ft,” he says. It is in this difficult situation that the farmers of Muthalamada are growing their mango trees that produce fruits that are savoured by people in cities built in the deserts of the Arabian Gulf.
Muthalamada produces almost all the best and most sought-after varieties of mangoes in India — Alphonso, Neelam, Mallika, Malgova, Chenthooram, etc — and all have overwhelming demand in the Gulf. Muthalamada mangoes get an advantage in the international market as they are early birds. They reach the market much before the mangoes get ripen in the gardens of the competitors in Peru and Venezuela. NRIs in the Gulf say that they prefer Kerala mangoes to those from Latin America for several reasons like flavor, taste and juiciness, but mainly trust and nostalgia.
“The only rains we get are in Thulavarsham (the rains brought by the October-December northeastern monsoon). But last year, there was an 80 percent shortfall in these rains,” says Rafeeq, a contractor who has invested over Rs50 lakh in business this year. According to him, the mango gardens must get fairly heavy showers when the first flowers come out. That did not happen this season and the result was that the entire flowers got scorched in the heat which witnessed a sudden and terrific leap at the start of the year. At noon on March 2, 9 and 16, the temperature stood at 40 degrees Celsius.
“Then and there I understood that I — along with many others like me — am in for big trouble. But we hoped that rain gods would bless us during the second flowering,” says Rafeeq. But this also did not happen. Dried up mango flowers withered off the stems and fell on the parched ground like the beaten dreams of the contractors. “I have invested Rs50 lakh and I am going to lose Rs40 lakh of it. An 80 per cent business loss is what Muthalamada is going to witness this season. The mango exports from Muthalamada are worth Rs200 crore and I am sure it is not going to fetch even Rs40 crore this year,” Rafeeq says with a sigh of despair.
Quite strangely, the mango farmers do not have to suffer these losses — however huge they are — brought about by droughts or any other adverse aspects in the concerned year. They would be facing the tragedy the following season. As per the system, the contractors take the produce from the farmer in a lot for the price that was given in the previous season. It is some kind of a future trade, but very blind at that. For example, the price of the mango to be harvested in the 2014 season will be fixed and paid to the farmer this year itself. “So I am not going to contract the farms for the price I gave last year for this season. I will be re-fixing the price as per the losses and returns this year. Obviously, that price will be very low,” Rafeeq points out, adding, “If the harvest is going to be good next year, the benefit will be for the contractor and not the farmer.”
And this is indeed the concern presently of over 400 local farmers and several from outside. Pranchi, caretaker of a 30-hectare mango garden which had gone for Rs17 lakh last year (and so this season too), remembers how abundant the harvest was then. “The harvest was so great that contractors were unable to get enough workers to pluck the fruits in time. I think the volume of mangoes lost due to this could have been equal to the volume they had been able to salvage,” says Pranchi. The tragedy this year has a tail piece. Muthalamada, with over 600 contractors, 36 registered exporters and 20 mango-parking facilities, provides jobs to a minimum of 15,000 people in a season. Last year, there was a terrible shortage of pluckers, sorters and packers because the harvest was so big. This year, more than 10,000 of them are out of job.
Chammanampathy and all other villages in the Muthalamada region present a dreary picture to the eyes of the visitor, despite the fact that they are quite close to the thick and verdant jungles of Anamalai and Parambikulam — both of which have own tiger reserves. Several resident farmers would vouch to you that they are waiting to see whether this year’s tragedy would revisit them next year too to withdraw from cultivating mango trees and to sell their lands to the avaricious and unscrupulous rock miners who blast the solid foundations of the planet to smithereens to supply materials used to build luxurious homes, high-gauge national highways and motor sports circuits. It all depends on the rain gods but a journey through the villages of Palakkad will convince you that there is not much room for optimism.
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