(iii) Ploughing In early days paddy farmers in the study area used to plough their fields four times during a single crop season. In each round one lengthwise ploughing was followed by a crosswise ploughing and together it was called a chal. The first chal of ploughing was done immediately after harvesting and it was known as podiuzhavu dust ploughing. Besides it three chals of ploughing were carried out before sowing and the practice was called vellathil uzhavu (water ploughing. Usually podi uzhavu was given to plough workers on piece rates and they used their own draught animals. Daily wages were given for vellathil uzhavu. Four hours of work was considered a day’s work. Generally the plough labourers worked for six hours in a day and were given one and a half day’s wages per day, which amounted to one and a half para of paddy. Rich farmers had their own draught animals. Attempts were made to introduce tractor ploughing in the study area during the s itself but it was vehemently opposed by the farm labour unions. In March 1969 a settlement between farmers and labourers was arrived at a meeting of the IRC of Kuttanad. As per the agreement at least one round of cattle ploughing is to be done after tractor ploughing. At present only 21 percent of the paddy farmers in the study area are exclusively depending on animal ploughing, another 19 percent of them use draught animals for only one round of ploughing while 46 percent use either tractors or power tillers for this purpose. The remaining farmers believe that any sort of ploughing is not needed in their fields. Nowadays for both types of ploughing piece rates in terms of money are given.
