Harvesting Harvesting involves reaping, bringing the sheaves to threshing grounds (kalam), threshing and winnowing. About four decades back tenfold yield was considered as economical (nervattom vilavu) in the sense that it was enough to the paddy farmers to get normal profits after meeting their entire cultivation costs. In those days harvesters were given one-elevenths of the yield as patham 42 . In addition to it outside labourers were given two paras of paddy as adayam.Harvesters used to get their patham only at the end of harvesting which lasted for many weeks. In 1943, farm labourers in the study area under the leadership of the Thiruvithamkoor Karshaka Thozhilali Union organized an agitation demanding subsistence wages in terms of paddy during the harvesting days. At the end of the agitation farmers agreed to give one sheath of paddy as theerpu katta to every labourers after two days of reaping. In those days the reapers used to bind the cut grain into sheaves and the system was called kattaketti koyith. Again they had to take the sheaves to distant threshing grounds for threshing and all the harvesting operations were done manually. At present the reapers leave the cut grains in small heaps in the fields and farmers have to employ additional labourers to tie and bring the sheaves to the threshing grounds. Until a few years back large electric fans were used for winnowing. Nowadays threshing machines that perform both the tasks of threshing and winnowing are used in all of the padasekharams in the study area. For harvesting labourers are given one- eights of the produce as patham and one- fourths of patham as theerpu. Besides it, nearly 70 percent of the sample farmers in Ramankari village give incentives to their labourers in the form of refreshments, conveyance charges etc. Even though harvesting machines are recently introduced in some parts of Kuttanad region, due to the vehement resentment of labour unions, so far it could not be used in the study area. 42 The term patham literally means one for tenor pathinu onnu
