of Purchase and the balance amounts are paid only after they sell the procured paddy. Again they insist on proper dryness. Therefore most of the paddy farmers sell their product either to the agents of private rice mills or to private traders. During the last crop season 61 percent of the farmers sold their paddy to the agents of private mills, 26 percent sold it to private traders and only 12 percent of them sold their product to cooperative societies even though the procurement price of paddy had been 13 percent higher than the average price offered by private agencies. Unlike the cooperative societies, agents of private mills and private traders make spot payments or even advance payments and it attracts most of the farmers towards them. Even though the state Warehousing Corporation has proposed to setup composite rice mill at Thakazhi before the summer crop in 1999, the plan was later dropped. The present procurement scheme, according to many farmers, is laden with rampant curruption, favouritism and nepotism and only ab bfew influential rich farmers are taking benefit out of it. 5.1.7 Inadequate research and extension services Paddy related agricultural research programmes in the state have not been much successful as far as the needs of paddy farmers in Kuttanad area are concerned. Since the introduction of the HVV seed jyothi (12-85) by the Pattambi Rice Research Institute in 1972, no better seed varieties have so far been developed in the state. Even though, the Kerala Agricultural University had introduced nine new varieties of paddy seeds during the Eight Plan period itself they had not
become popular as the three decade old jyothi, which has a short duration of 110 to 115 days and a yield capacity of 2 to 2.5 tonnes per acre. The HYV seeds developed later in the Mancombu Rice Research station like Asha, Pavizham, Aruna, Makam and Kanakam with longer duration of 115 to 120 days also have failed to give better yields. The word jyothi literally means light and according to many farmers the seed had come as light to brighten their dim prospects in paddy cultivation. Even though the yield capacity of the recently developed Umamarginally exceeds that of Jyothi, the stalk of the plant is weaker and by the time of harvesting most of them fall in the ground. As the quality its rice is found to be inferior it is sold at relatively lower prices. Even though soil testing laboratories had been setup at many places in Kuttanad as part of the Package Programme majority of the farmers in the study area are not aware of the importance of testing soil from their fields. The inordinate delays in getting the results also deter a large number of them from soil testing. It is found that 81 percent of the sample farmers in the study area have never tested the soil in their paddy fields. In matters like the application of fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides farmers are not often guided by farm experts or scientists. It is also observed that avast majority of the paddy farmers in the study area are not
