Pokkali gasping

Pokkali, the saline water-resistant, nutritious and premium-priced rice, should have been everyone’s darling but it remains a neglected crop with acreage on a free fall. Being a double crop, it is losing out to aquaculture. Experts call for its preservation not only for its nutritious value but also for its role as a bulwark against saline water intrusion

A drive along the thin black ribbon-like road flanked by paddy fields in Ezhupunna village in Cherthala taluk can be a captivating sight for a visitor.

On one side are partially submerged fields with paddy seedlings spearing through the water surface here and there while the other showcases a network of fields under water. For a pokkali farmer, that sight tells the tale of continuing neglect. 

Normally, the fields should have sported an identical look by this time of the year — well ploughed and separated into furrows and mounds, bunds bordering them, water properly regulated, and seeds sprouting rather uniformly. The situation on ground, however, presents a different story.  

Theoretically, at least, pokkali, the saline water-resistant, nutritious and premium-priced rice, should have been everyone’s darling with Geographical Indication Certificate and Genome Community Award thrown in for good measure. But in practice, the acreage under pokkali farming done across Ernakulam, Thrissur, and Alappuzha districts has dropped from 25,000 ha to about 5,000 ha at the turn of the century. That said, actual farming takes place in less than 1,000 ha.  

Pokkali farms are supposed to adhere to a double crop calendar — paddy between April and October during the low saline phase of monsoon and saline aquaculture between November and March when salinity soars.  

“If rice is to be included in the rice-prawn integrated farming system of pokkali region, then the fish culture must end by April 15 for preparing the land for a successful pokkali rice crop. A thorough and sufficiently long land preparation is necessary to reduce soil salinity from about 24 deciseimens per metre (ds/m) to the desirable level of less than 4 ds/m,” says N.K. Sashidharan, former associate professor of Agronomy at Kerala Agriculture University (KAU), who has several research projects on rice production in pokkali fields to his credit.

Land preparation involves dewatering and drying the land which help neutralise the chemicals used during saline aquaculture. It is then ploughed and separated into furrows and mounds as evaporation of moisture leaves behind sodium chloride crystals to be blown away by the wind while the pre-monsoon showers further wash away salinity. Then once the monsoon sets in and stabilises, the germinated pokkali paddy seeds are sown on the mounds and furrows.