machinery to impart training to farmers and (9) diversification of crops to supplement paddy farmers income. With the implementation of these proposals, the study anticipated that the per hectare productivity of the puncha and virippu crops in Kuttanad could be enhanced by 12.20 percent and 20.05 percent respectively. Barely ten years after the study of the Indo-Dutch Mission, the state government appointed another expert committee under the chairmanship of KN Shyamasundaran Nair to study the various problems involved in paddy cultivation in the state. In its not yet published report the Committee observes that owing to increasing cost of cultivation without any commensurate increase in output price paddy farmers in Kuttanad region want to supplement their income from rice cultivation and the present monocropping system is neither ecologically sound nor economically suitable. Hence it recommends ricebased integrated system of farming involving a short season crop offish ii as an ideally suitable system for the
