Mainstream WeeklyKeywords: Agrarian Crisis; Kerala Agriculture; Doughnut Economics; De-agrarianisation; Political Symbolism; Ecological Future
Introduction
The allocation of ministerial portfolios often reveals more than administrative convenience. It exposes the hierarchy of political importance attached to different sectors. Some ministries are seen as sources of power, visibility, finance and influence; others are viewed as burdensome, crisis-ridden or electorally unrewarding. In this sense, the reported hesitation surrounding the Agriculture portfolio in Kerala’s newly formed government is not a minor episode of coalition politics. It is a politically symbolic and sociologically revealing moment.
The issue is not merely who finally accepted the Agriculture portfolio. The deeper question is why agriculture appears to have lost political attractiveness in a state where land, tenancy struggles, peasant mobilisation and food production once occupied a central place in public life. Ministries associated with finance, industries, infrastructure, education and administration command high visibility. Agriculture, by contrast, appears associated with distress, labour shortage, ecological vulnerability and limited political reward.
Agriculture was never only an economic activity in Kerala. It shaped caste relations, land struggles, social reform, rural livelihoods, political mobilisation and the making of democratic Kerala. Yet, over the decades, agriculture has moved from the centre of Kerala’s development imagination to its margins. The farmer, once a politically meaningful figure, is increasingly seen as a symbol of uncertainty rather than aspiration.
This decline is not merely a question of prices, productivity or farm income. It reflects a deeper process of de-agrarianisation. Education, migration, Gulf remittances, salaried employment, urban aspirations and consumerist social mobility have transformed the way younger generations view agriculture. For many educated youth, farming is no longer seen as a dignified or desirable occupation. Agricultural labour has become scarce, traditional farming knowledge is weakening, and even landowning households often find it difficult to continue cultivation. Even the common observation that a young farmer may face difficulty in the marriage market captures the erosion of agriculture’s social prestige.
Kerala’s achievements in decentralised planning and local self-government make this crisis more troubling. If any Indian state had the institutional capacity to imagine agriculture through gram panchayats, cooperatives, Kudumbashree and local planning, it was Kerala. Yet agriculture has not been adequately reimagined as a local ecological, economic and social project.
The dominant economic approach often treats agriculture mainly in terms of productivity, subsidies, prices and market returns. Such a framework is necessary but insufficient. Agriculture also sustains food security, ecological balance, soil systems, water cycles, biodiversity, rural livelihoods and community resilience. Kerala’s agrarian crisis is therefore also an ecological crisis. It requires a broader framework closer to ecological economics and Doughnut Economics, where development is understood not merely as income expansion but as the creation of a just social foundation within ecological limits.
This article interprets the reluctance surrounding the Agriculture portfolio as a metaphor for Kerala’s deeper agrarian transition. The crisis of agriculture is not simply a crisis of farmers or crops; it is a crisis of social aspiration, political imagination, ecological responsibility and institutional vision. The present moment can become an opportunity to rethink agriculture through agroecology, decentralised governance, cooperative institutions, technological modernisation, food sovereignty and renewed social dignity for farming.
Agriculture as an Unwanted Portfolio
The discomfort surrounding the Agriculture portfolio must be read as more than portfolio bargaining. In parliamentary politics, ministries carry different degrees of symbolic and practical power. Portfolios such as finance, home, industries, public works, education and infrastructure are associated with authority, visibility, budgetary control and political influence. Agriculture, by contrast, increasingly appears as a difficult and unrewarding responsibility: full of public expectations, but limited in quick political returns.
A minister who takes charge of agriculture inherits not merely a department, but a long accumulation of unresolved questions: declining farm profitability, labour shortage, rising input costs, land fragmentation, climate uncertainty, wildlife conflict in some regions, crop-price volatility and the growing disinterest of younger generations. The portfolio becomes politically unattractive because the sector itself has become structurally vulnerable. This does not mean that political leaders are individually indifferent to farmers. The problem is deeper. Agriculture itself has become associated with crisis management rather than developmental possibility.
The irony is sharp. A state that once placed land and agrarian justice at the centre of its democratic transformation now finds agriculture pushed to the margins of political aspiration. Even political formations historically associated with agrarian communities appear unable or unwilling to treat agriculture as a portfolio of future-oriented transformation. The portfolio episode therefore reveals a wider social change: agriculture has lost symbolic capital in Kerala’s society.
This loss of prestige has practical consequences. When agriculture loses social respect, families discourage their children from entering farming. When youth leave agriculture, traditional knowledge weakens. When labour becomes scarce, cultivation becomes costly. When land is retained as an asset but not cultivated as a productive resource, Kerala moves towards a condition in which society remains emotionally attached to land but increasingly detached from agricultural work.
The labour question is particularly serious. In many regions, landowners are willing to cultivate but find it difficult to organise timely labour for planting, weeding, harvesting and maintenance. Mechanisation has helped in paddy cultivation, but fragmented holdings, terrain diversity and high labour costs continue to limit conventional farming.
The portfolio episode also reveals the absence of a larger agrarian vision. Agriculture is treated as a problem to be administered, not as a future to be constructed.
Kerala’s Agrarian Transformation
Kerala’s present crisis must be located within the longer history of its agrarian transformation. Historically, land was not only an economic asset; it was a source of status, authority, identity and social control. The struggle over land was therefore also a struggle over dignity, citizenship and democracy. Peasant struggles, tenancy movements, anti-feudal mobilisations and left-oriented politics placed the agrarian question at the centre of Kerala’s democratic transformation.
Land reform became one of the defining achievements of modern Kerala. It weakened traditional landlordism, gave greater security to tenants and contributed to the social democratisation of rural Kerala. Agriculture was therefore not only an economic field; it was a central arena through which Kerala’s modern political society was created.
However, the gains of land reform also produced new contradictions. The redistribution and subdivision of land contributed to a highly fragmented agrarian structure. Small and marginal holdings became dominant. While this had an important democratic meaning, it also created problems of economic viability, mechanisation, irrigation management and market access. In many parts of Kerala, the farm became too small to sustain a household, but too emotionally and socially important to be abandoned altogether.
This contradiction became sharper with migration-led development. From the 1970s onwards, Gulf migration, remittances, education, salaried employment and the growth of the service sector transformed rural aspirations. Agriculture gradually ceased to be the primary route to upward mobility. Land continued to matter as property, inheritance, residence and social security, but cultivation itself became less central to household income and social prestige. Kerala thus entered a peculiar condition in which society remained attached to land but increasingly detached from farming.
The generational dimension is crucial. For many young people, agriculture is no longer seen as a desirable life project. Education, migration, professional work and urban lifestyles carry greater social recognition. Manual agricultural labour is often viewed as physically difficult, uncertain and socially inferior.
The decline of paddy cultivation illustrates this transformation sharply. Paddy fields were once central not only to food production but also to Kerala’s ecological balance. Their decline represents a deeper ecological and civilisational loss.
The growth of cash crops created another vulnerability. Rubber, coconut, pepper, cardamom, tea and coffee linked Kerala farmers to national and global markets. While these crops generated income in certain periods, they also exposed cultivators to price volatility, import competition, climate shocks and market uncertainty. Thus, Kerala’s agriculture came to combine small holdings, high costs, labour shortage and global price risk.
This historical trajectory shows why the present portfolio episode is revealing. Agriculture became politically unattractive because it had already become socially and economically unsettled. The portfolio did not become unwanted overnight. It became unwanted through decades of de-agrarianisation, migration-led aspirations, labour withdrawal, land fragmentation, ecological stress and institutional neglect.
The Present Agrarian Crisis
Kerala’s agrarian crisis today is produced by the interaction of structural, social, ecological and institutional forces. The visible symptoms are familiar: fallow land, declining cultivation, labour scarcity, unstable farm incomes, crop-price volatility, climate shocks and youth disengagement. Behind these symptoms lies a deeper question: why has a society with high literacy, strong local self-government, cooperative traditions and a long history of social mobilisation been unable to create a viable and respected future for agriculture?
One structural challenge is the fragmentation of landholdings. Many farmers operate on small and scattered plots, making mechanisation, irrigation, storage, marketing and crop diversification difficult. The small farm in Kerala is often socially meaningful but economically fragile. Land has not lost value; what has declined is the value of agriculture as work. Land is increasingly viewed as real estate, inheritance, investment or residential space rather than as a productive ecological resource.
A second challenge is labour scarcity. Agriculture is caught between high labour costs and the declining availability of skilled agricultural workers. In farming, timing is crucial. Delay in sowing, weeding, irrigation, pest management or harvesting can determine the success or failure of a crop. This shortage reflects a deeper social change. Agricultural work has lost dignity in the public imagination. A society that celebrates education, mobility and salaried employment has not created a parallel respect for farming as skilled and knowledge-based work.
A third challenge is declining generational continuity. Earlier, agricultural knowledge moved from one generation to another through everyday participation in farming life. Today, that chain has weakened. Kerala is losing not only farmers but also agricultural memory, local knowledge and community-based practices of cultivation.
The fourth challenge is ecological stress. Climate change has made agriculture more uncertain. Erratic rainfall, floods, drought-like conditions, landslides, crop diseases, pest attacks and soil degradation are now part of the farming environment. Agriculture can no longer be planned on the assumption that nature will remain stable. The farmer now works within a risk society where ecological uncertainty has become normal.
The fifth challenge is food dependence. Kerala is highly dependent on other states for rice, vegetables, fruits and several essential food items. This dependence is often normalised because supply chains function smoothly under ordinary conditions. But dependence becomes dangerous during climate shocks, transport disruptions, price inflation, interstate tensions or public health emergencies. Food sovereignty should therefore be understood as a strategic component of Kerala’s future security.
The sixth challenge is institutional weakness. Kerala has gram panchayats, cooperatives, Kudumbashree networks, farmer groups, local planning mechanisms and agricultural departments. Yet agriculture is often approached through schemes, subsidies, campaigns or short-term projects rather than through a coherent ecological and economic strategy. Panchayats have the potential to map local land use, protect water bodies, revive paddy fields, support farmer collectives, link production with local consumption, and integrate agriculture with schools, anganwadis, hospitals and community kitchens. But such a systemic approach remains weak.
The seventh challenge is the absence of a youth-oriented agricultural policy. Young people will not return merely through moral appeals. They require income security, technology, market access, dignity, institutional support and a sense of future.
The present crisis, therefore, is not simply an agricultural crisis. It is a crisis of Kerala’s development model. A state cannot indefinitely depend on remittances, consumption, service-sector growth and food imports while allowing its productive ecological base to weaken.
5. Political Economy, Doughnut Economics and Ecological Futures
Kerala’s agrarian crisis requires more than an administrative response. It requires a theoretical rethinking of the place of agriculture in society. If agriculture is understood only as a low-return economic sector, its decline may appear natural in a modernising economy. But if agriculture is understood as a foundation of food security, ecological balance, rural livelihood, cultural continuity and democratic life, then its decline becomes a serious developmental warning.
From a political economy perspective, the marginalisation of agriculture reflects the changing structure of Kerala’s development model. The state’s economy has increasingly depended on migration, remittances, services, consumption and public expenditure. This has contributed to human development, education, housing, health and social mobility. However, it has also weakened the productive base of the economy, especially agriculture and small-scale local production. Kerala has become a society with high consumption capacity but declining food-producing capacity.
The concept of de-agrarianisation explains this shift. Families may continue to own land, but their future plans are no longer built around cultivation. Young people may inherit farms, but they do not necessarily inherit farming as a vocation. Agriculture survives physically, but its social meaning declines. Kerala’s problem is precisely this: agriculture remains visible in land, memory and politics, but it has weakened as a respected life project.
Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of symbolic capital is useful here. In Kerala today, education, migration, government employment, professional work and urban lifestyles carry high symbolic capital. Farming carries much less. This is why the decline of agriculture cannot be explained only by income. Even where agriculture can generate income, it often does not generate equivalent social prestige. The loss of prestige is therefore not a soft cultural issue; it has hard economic consequences.
Amartya Sen’s capability approach also offers an important perspective. Agriculture should be assessed not only by output or income, but by the freedoms and capabilities it creates: secure livelihoods, healthy food, ecological stability, community participation, women’s work, local employment and intergenerational knowledge. A farmer who lives under price uncertainty, climate risk, debt pressure and social devaluation is not merely facing an income problem. He or she is facing a capability deprivation.
Doughnut Economics offers a useful way to frame the future. Development must remain between a social foundation—food, health, livelihood, dignity, equity and participation—and an ecological ceiling of climate stability, biodiversity, soil health, water systems and sustainable land use. Kerala’s agriculture must be socially just, economically viable and ecologically safe.
The experience of countries such as Israel is useful in a limited sense. It shows that ecological constraints need not prevent agricultural innovation. Kerala cannot copy Israel because its ecology, landholding pattern and social structure are different. But it can learn an important lesson: agriculture becomes viable when science, institutions, technology and public purpose work together.
Civil society and faith-based initiatives can also contribute to this revaluation of agriculture. The emerging interest of some Christian institutions in cultivation, land stewardship and the dignity of labour may be seen as part of a wider ethical response to agrarian decline. Its importance lies not in religious identity as such, but in the attempt to restore moral seriousness to agricultural work. The idea that food, labour, land and community are ethically connected can help challenge the reduction of agriculture to market calculation alone.
6. Towards a New Agrarian Vision
Kerala’s agrarian crisis cannot be resolved by treating agriculture as a routine departmental subject. The state has to move beyond the familiar language of subsidies, compensation, minimum support prices and seasonal campaigns. These measures are necessary in moments of distress, but they cannot restore the dignity, viability and ecological importance of agriculture. What Kerala needs is a new agrarian imagination that connects farming with food security, youth employment, ecological restoration, local democracy and social dignity.
The first step is to recognise agriculture as a strategic sector. Kerala cannot revive agriculture by appealing to nostalgia. The old agrarian order was marked by hierarchy, caste exclusion and hard manual dependence. The future must be democratic, knowledge-intensive, technologically supported, cooperative and ecologically responsible. It should be possible for an educated young person to see agriculture not as a sign of failure, but as a meaningful field of enterprise, innovation and public contribution.
A youth-oriented agricultural strategy is essential. Agriculture must be linked with start-ups, food processing, agri-tourism, digital marketing, climate-smart farming, protected cultivation, organic products and value addition. Young people may not be attracted to conventional agriculture, but they may enter a transformed agricultural economy that combines science, enterprise and ecological purpose.
Kerala must also make farming compatible with its smallholding structure. Since landholdings are fragmented, individual farming alone may not be viable in many places. Cooperative and collective models are therefore crucial. Farmer producer organisations, producer cooperatives, Kudumbashree collectives, neighbourhood farming groups and panchayat-supported cultivation clusters can help overcome the limitations of small plots. Collective mechanisation, shared labour pools, input purchase, processing and marketing can reduce costs and improve bargaining power.
Local self-government institutions must be given a central role. Panchayats should not merely distribute seeds, fertilisers or small subsidies. They should become institutions of agrarian and ecological reconstruction. Each panchayat can prepare a local agricultural and ecological plan: mapping cultivable land, identifying fallow land, protecting paddy fields, reviving water bodies, supporting farmer groups, coordinating labour and linking local production with public institutions such as schools, anganwadis, hospitals and community kitchens.
Technology must be used intelligently. Kerala can adapt sensor-based irrigation, polyhouses, climate advisories, digital extension, soil testing and local market information systems. Technology should support small farmers rather than displace them. At the same time, agriculture must remain ecologically grounded. Paddy fields, wetlands, homestead farming, mixed cropping and coconut-based farming systems must be seen as parts of an interconnected ecological economy.
Food sovereignty should become a core policy objective. Kerala may not be able to produce all the food it consumes, but it should produce a much larger share of its essential food requirements. Public institutions can become stable buyers of local produce. This would link farmers with public nutrition and reduce dependence on distant supply chains.
Women’s participation must be central to renewal. Kudumbashree has already demonstrated the power of women’s collective action in farming, food processing and local development. A new agrarian vision must recognise women not merely as helpers in agriculture, but as producers, organisers and ecological citizens.
Kerala also needs a new language for agriculture. As long as agriculture is described only through distress, compensation and decline, young people will not see a future in it. Agriculture must be spoken of as ecology, enterprise, knowledge, food security and democratic responsibility. The farmer must be seen not as a passive beneficiary of government assistance, but as a custodian of land, water, food and biodiversity.
7. Conclusion: Reimagining Agriculture as Kerala’s Future
The reluctance surrounding the Agriculture portfolio should not be dismissed as a passing episode of coalition politics. It has revealed something deeper about the changing imagination of development in Kerala. Agriculture, once central to struggles over land, labour, social justice and democracy, now appears politically burdensome and socially less attractive. This is the real significance of the episode. It shows that agriculture has lost not only economic viability but also symbolic prestige.
Kerala’s agrarian crisis is therefore not merely a crisis of farmers, crops or prices. It is a crisis of social aspiration, ecological responsibility and institutional imagination. The younger generation increasingly moves away from farming, agricultural labour is scarce, land is valued more as property than as a productive ecological resource, and local governments have not converted decentralised planning into sustained agrarian renewal. The result is a society that remains emotionally attached to land but increasingly detached from agriculture.
This is a dangerous contradiction. Kerala cannot indefinitely depend on remittances, consumption, services and food imports while allowing its productive ecological base to weaken. In an age of climate change, supply-chain uncertainty and ecological instability, agriculture is not a backward sector. It is a strategic sector. Paddy fields, wetlands, homestead farms, mixed cropping systems, local food chains and community farming are part of Kerala’s ecological security.
The way forward is not to romanticise the past. The task is to create a new agriculture suited to contemporary Kerala: democratic, knowledge-intensive, technologically supported, cooperative, youth-oriented and ecologically responsible. Doughnut Economics offers a useful way of thinking about this transition. Kerala’s agriculture must provide a strong social foundation—food, livelihood, dignity, nutrition and participation—while remaining within ecological limits relating to soil, water, biodiversity, wetlands and climate.
The question before Kerala, therefore, is not simply who holds the Agriculture portfolio. The real question is whether agriculture can be restored as a respected and future-oriented domain of public policy. Kerala’s agrarian renewal must rest on five connected principles: people’s participation, local self-government, ecological protection, food security and the dignity of farmers. If agriculture is reimagined through these principles, it need not remain an unwanted portfolio or a symbol of distress. It can become the foundation of a more democratic, ecologically secure and socially dignified Kerala. In doing so, Kerala can once again offer a model of development—this time not only in human development, but in sustainable and dignified agrarian transformation.
Declaration of AI Use: AI assistance was used only for language refinement, editing, and improving clarity. The ideas, arguments, analysis, and final responsibility for the article remain entirely with the authors.
(Authors: Prof. (Dr.) Jos Chathukulam is former Professor, Sri Ramakrishna Hegde Chair on Decentralisation and Development, Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru, and currently Director, Centre for Rural Management (CRM), Kottayam, Kerala. ; Prof. (Dr.) A. M. Jose is Professor and Head, Amity School of Economics, Amity University Haryana, India.)