Mannathara

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Mannathara is a small village in the Idukki District of Kerala on the southwest coast of India. The word manathra evolves from the name of a tribal groups called Mannan. Mannans were the inhabitants of the entire region even in the beginning of the twentieth century. Migration of the peasants in the 1950s and 1960s was the major turning of point of this forest hilly region into an agrarian village. Now it is a village of farmers who have migrated from Palai, Ettumanoor, Kothamangalam, Thodupuzha, and Melukavu

This village is famous for its high quality black pepper. Black pepper and cardamon from this area had been considered as special quality in the Mattacherry spice market in Cochin. But the leaf disease of black pepper (Kurumulku valli) in the late 1980s onwards was a major backlash to the agrarian change of Mannathara. Moreover, the import of black pepper from other parts of the world to Cochin port and mixing of the imported goods with high quality pepper from idukki affected the demand of high range pepper in the international market.

In the 1990s as elsewhere in India structural adjustment policies of the government affected Mannathara. The roll back of the Government of Indian and the State government from the welfare policies for peasants and elimination of subsidy for fertilizers increased the risk of invistment. The risk of investment was high in the case of ginger, plantain, and arrack nut cultivation. The heavy fluctuations in the climate and various crop diseases increased the burden of the peasants. Cultivation of cassava (tappioca) and rice and milk products were the ways to meet their ends. Milma (APCOS) corporation of the Kerala state Government was a helping hand to the peasants. Nursing as a profession with employment chances attracted the lower middle class peasant families. The agraian crisis of compelled young women to prefer nursing as a profession. Trained nurses, mostly from Syrian Christian and ezhava families migrated to middle eastern countries.

[edit] Geography

A long strip of rice field is the land mark of Mannathara. Mannathra thodu (a stream) flowing in the middle of the rice field is the life line of Mannathara. Overflowing of this stream in the heavy monsoon months helps to balance the fertility of this rice field.