By IANS
Thiruvananthapuram : The Kerala forest department has taken over an organic farm estate in Palakkad district, and the erstwhile owners claim the move has put in jeopardy the organic products grown there worth Rs.40 million.
The estate, situated 450 km from here, was leased out in 1907 by the then administrators of the Travancore state to P.B. Kay for a period of 100 years.
In 1995, the Poabs Organic Group took over the leased property from Kay and invested more than Rs.200 million for organic farming of pepper, coffee and arecanut.
Trouble began for the Poabs group in July when the state forest department took over the 351 acre Thuthampara estate on the ground that the lease period had expired.
Criticising the government move, Thomas Jacob of Poabs said Saturday that they were expecting the yield from the estate from next January onwards.
“Expecting the yield from the estate, we had entered into contracts with a Japanese firm to export organic pepper and coffee. The total export value would have been around Rs.40 million and now everything is gone with the takeover of the estate,” said Jacob.
Forest Minister Binoy Viswam said what the government had done was within the law.
“We cannot bend the rules for one person. The government will never succumb to pressure,” Viswam told IANS.
Viswam said that the Poabs group took over the farm in 1995 without the knowledge of the state government.
“The records do not mention anywhere of the taking over of the estate by Poabs. We go by records and also by the rule of the land,” he said.
Currently the issue is in the court and the state government has come out with an organic farm policy. It remains to be seen what would be the fate of the organic products from the estate.