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Mohammad Kutty of Thoppil Thodi in Pazhayannur panchayat of Thrissur district grows vegetables commercially for sale. This year, he feels like an achiever. For the first time in his life he is eating cauliflower which he has grown on his…

Kerala is on a honeymoon with passion fruit. Originally from Brazil, passion fruit has found fertile ground in the state after a government farm first began growing and processing it in a low-key way. Over the past five years, farmers,…

Hundreds of coconut climbers in Kerala are walking from tree to tree at a dizzying height of 15 to 20 metres above the ground on a ‘coconut tree ropeway’. From below it’s a jaw-dropping sight; the climbers look like they…

S.S. Paramesha’s farm in Chellur has a 35-year-old jackfruit tree which yields unusual fruit. It is small, red, flaky and very tasty. While scouting around for unique varieties of jackfruit in Tumkur district’s Gubbi taluk, Dr…

How do you save desi or indigenous cows from extinction? Just make it profitable to rear them. It is really that simple. For years desi cows have been losing out to crossbred varieties because they produce less milk. Farmers simply do…

Digging a well is a job that has always been done by men. The work is not for the faint hearted. It is risky and laborious. Yet 300 women in Palakkad district’s Pookkottukavu Panchayat have become expert well-diggers, going deep…

Every summer, until a few years ago, tempers would rise in the municipal corporation of Belagavi (formerly Belgaum), a city in northwest Karnataka. Armies of women fortified with kodas (water vessels) would barge into the mayor’s…

At sunrise every day, across 13 districts in Maharashtra, thousands of villagers set out to dig trenches and build earthen dams. This has been their early morning routine for the past 45 days. From able-bodied men and women to little boys…

In summer, hundreds of makeshift stalls appear alongside National Highway-47 from Chavakkad to Kochi, selling the juice of snap melon to thirsty travellers. The fruit has become so popular that enthusiastic young farmers have started…

CHengalikodan is a banana with a venerable past. An ancient document from a Tharavad household in Kerala mentions its history. It says Chengazhikodu was a tiny kingdom which was under threat. The rulers enlisted some families beyond the…