Pokkali rice cultivation is showing limited signs of revival in the coastal belt around Kochi, but the scale of the recovery remains small against the dramatic loss of the region’s traditional paddy landscape. Once known as the rice bowl of the area, the paddy-growing belt covering Kadamakkudy, Varapuzha, Kottuvally, Ezhikkara, Vypin, Chittattukara and parts of Chellanam has been reduced by urbanisation, changing livelihoods, labour shortages and declining farm income.
The revival is being driven by a combination of farmer initiatives, local institutional support and group farming. Employment guarantee workers have shown a willingness to participate in harvesting, while Kudumbashree groups and other labour collectives have entered cultivation on fields that had remained fallow. Cooperative institutions have provided financial assistance, and local bodies and agriculture offices have supported efforts to bring abandoned paddy fields back under cultivation.
That recovery matters because Pokkali is not simply another rice variety. It is a traditional crop adapted to the brackish-water conditions of Kerala’s coastal wetlands. The variety is cultivated without chemical fertilisers and is known for its tolerance to saline conditions. The plants can grow to around 1.5 metres, and a single ear can contain about 300 grains, according to the Mathrubhumi report. Its ability to grow in areas where saltwater enters the fields gives it a distinctive relationship with the coastal environment.
The geography of Pokkali cultivation also explains why its decline is an urban issue. The paddy fields lie in areas that have experienced rapid urbanisation and extensive human activity. These are not isolated rural landscapes disconnected from cities; they form part of the low-lying ecological system around Kochi and neighbouring coastal districts. As land use changes and cultivation becomes financially difficult, the loss is reflected not only in agricultural output but also in the weakening of a landscape shaped around seasonal water, saline soil and traditional farming practices.
The scale of that contraction is substantial. Pokkali paddy fields once spread across about 24,000 hectares in Ernakulam, Thrissur and Alappuzha districts. The area has now declined to approximately 5,000 hectares, while cultivation is taking place on less than 2,500 hectares. In Ernakulam district, the current cultivated area is reported to be about 350 hectares. The remaining cultivation is concentrated in places including Varapuzha, Kadamakkudy, Kottuvally, Ezhikkara, Chittattukara, Vypin and Chellanam.
These figures show the difference between the survival of a crop and the survival of its farming system. Pokkali still exists as a recognised rice variety, but most of the landscape that once supported it no longer produces rice regularly. Many paddy fields have become fallow. The Mathrubhumi report attributes the decline partly to the loss of farm income and the difficulty of finding enough workers for harvesting. For landowners, cultivation has also been linked with fish farming, which has helped keep some fields connected to production even when rice cultivation itself has weakened.
The labour question is particularly important. Pokkali cultivation involves preparing fields, sowing, weeding and harvesting in a coastal setting where agricultural work is shaped by water conditions. When workers are unavailable or harvesting becomes uneconomic, even land that remains physically suitable for farming can become inactive. The entry of employment guarantee workers, Kudumbashree groups and other collectives therefore represents more than an increase in available labour. It indicates that the organisation of work is becoming as important as the availability of land.
This is where local governance enters the story. The reported revival has not been attributed to a single large infrastructure project or a single state intervention. Instead, it has emerged through several smaller forms of institutional participation: financial support from cooperative bodies, assistance from local governments, and intervention by agriculture offices. The pattern suggests that the future of coastal cultivation depends on coordination across institutions that handle local administration, agriculture, labour and community development.
A state-level agency is also working for the welfare and development of Pokkali cultivation and its farmers. The report further notes that there has long been a demand to preserve and manage the environmentally fragile Pokkali fields as heritage farming villages. That demand points to a policy gap. Recognition of the crop’s cultural and biological value has not automatically produced the conditions needed for farmers to continue cultivating it.
Pokkali received a Geographical Indication certificate in 2009 and the Plant Genome Community Award from the Union Agriculture Ministry for 2010-11. It has also been promoted as a special rice. These recognitions establish the variety’s distinctiveness, but they have not reversed the decline in cultivation. The gap between formal recognition and field-level continuity is central to understanding the problem. A crop can be celebrated as heritage while the land, labour and income systems required to grow it continue to disappear.
The shortage of Pokkali seed has created another constraint. The report says that varieties including Chettivirippu and Vytilla-8 were developed from Pokkali, but that limited seed availability has led to further experimentation. Seed is therefore not only a technical input; it is part of the institutional infrastructure of traditional agriculture. When a locally adapted variety is cultivated on a shrinking area, maintaining reliable access to seed becomes essential to keeping the crop in production and allowing farmers to expand it when conditions permit.
The reported revival also has an important land-use dimension. A fallow paddy field is not necessarily an empty or unused space. In the Pokkali landscape, it is part of a coastal agro-ecological system. The fields are connected to saline water conditions and to farming practices that have evolved around them. When those fields are removed from cultivation or converted to other uses, the change affects the relationship between settlement, water and land. The source material does not quantify the specific flood-control or groundwater effects of the fields, but it clearly places their decline within a wider process of rapid urbanisation and human pressure.
For Kochi’s expanding urban region, this creates a structural question: can the city treat coastal agricultural land only as developable land, or will it recognise some of it as productive ecological infrastructure? The evidence in the report does not establish a complete policy framework for answering that question. It does, however, show that the remaining Pokkali fields are concentrated in precisely the kind of coastal environment where competing land uses and changing livelihoods are most intense.
The figures also caution against describing the current revival as a recovery of the old system. Cultivation below 2,500 hectares across the wider Pokkali region, and around 350 hectares in Ernakulam district, remains far below the historical spread of the fields. The visible return of green paddy in some areas is significant, but it represents a partial reversal rather than a restoration of the former landscape.
The strongest evidence of renewed momentum comes from the return of some farmers, the involvement of community groups and the support of local institutions. The strongest evidence of continuing vulnerability is the scale of land loss, the shortage of workers, the weakness of farm income and the limited availability of seed. Together, these facts show why revival cannot depend only on individual farmers choosing to return to cultivation.
Pokkali’s future will be determined by whether its ecological adaptation can be matched by an economic and administrative system that makes cultivation viable. The current signs of revival show that fallow fields can return to production when labour, finance and institutional support come together. They also show how little of the original cultivation base remains. The next important developments will be the continuation of group farming, the response of local bodies and agriculture institutions, the protection of remaining fields, and the ability of the Pokkali farming system to secure seed and income for farmers.
