00:00This rubber tree is being felled for the sake of a better future.
00:05Thomas Kattakam turned his back on the rubber business years ago.
00:09The 80-year-old farmer is seen as an environmental pioneer in the Indian state of Kerala.
00:16Rubber cultivation only really began to take off in Kerala in the 1950s.
00:21And now, the once booming sector is an economic and ecological crisis.
00:26Kattakam started planting jackfruit instead, which has traditionally played a big role in Kerala's cuisine.
00:33On a two-hectare plot, he started cultivating 400 different varieties to preserve them for the future.
00:42I travelled across Kerala to find the rarest native jackfruit varieties, but graft them and keep them close to my home.
00:51In 2016, on 1.5 acres of cleared rubber, I replanted 140 budded varieties.
01:04That's when I set myself the goal, in my heart, to create the world's largest jackfruit gene bank.
01:12But one million Kerala farmers still make their living from rubber cultivation.
01:20The trees are scored with a clean cut so that the sap, which is called latex, drips into small cups attached to the trunk.
01:29After a few hours, the latex is collected and then mixed with formic acid so that it coagulates.
01:36Once it becomes firm enough, it is fed through a roller and pressed into rubber sheets.
01:51It is then washed and hung up to dry.
01:55Rubber sheets now only fetch about 25 euro cents more per kilo than raw latex.
02:00Sheet production has dropped sharply due to high wages and skilled labour shortages.
02:08Even latex production itself is hardly worthwhile.
02:14To be profitable, we would need at least 250 rupees, 2 euros 40 a kilo.
02:20But we are only getting 1 euro 70 for sheets and 1 euro 55 for latex.
02:24Kerala accounts for more than two-thirds of India's natural rubber output.
02:30It's an important product in the global market, used for surgical gloves or car tyres, for example.
02:37For decades, it was a sure bet.
02:40But competition from synthetic rubber and ecological over-exploitation are taking their toll.
02:45Rubber monocultures deplete the soils, so yields are declining.
02:49So, now we realize the economic resilience that we achieved from rubber was at the cost of ecological stability.
03:01So, if you look at the soil conditions, we can see that wherever we have completed at least one or two cycles of rubber,
03:09the acidity has increased.
03:11The soil acidity has increased.
03:12And also, the carbon content in the soil has declined.
03:18And as a result, the soil structure has changed and the fertility has reduced.
03:23In rubber cultivation, the nutrients do not return to the soil.
03:27They are expelled with the latex.
03:29Kattakam's jackfruit plantation is an intercropped farm,
03:32with tall trees like Atokarpus hirsutus, medium crops like banana, and small herb plants like turmeric.
03:38The trees' deep roots bring nutrients to the surface and improve soil structure.
03:44For water management, I dug rainwater holes across the plantation.
03:49They help retain groundwater in wells and ponds.
03:54Now, with water holes at the highest points of the land, water levels have never dropped.
03:59The reason why we picked pineapple as our intercrop for the first three years is because you can get
04:29a decent income out of pineapple for the first three years by giving it for a lease or you do your cultivation yourself.
04:37By three years, these rambutans will be ready to yield.
04:40So, the first three years, you'll get some income from the pineapple.
04:45And from third year onwards, you start getting income from the rambutan.
04:48Now, the income cycle is not broken.
04:50Kerala gets almost 200 days of rainfall a year, an advantage that Varkar George uses wisely.
04:59He harvests rainwater in ponds, refills boreholes, and mulches the soil.
05:04But Kerala's rubber farmers don't need to completely switch to tropical fruits to survive.
05:10Rubber can stay if it's integrated into a proper agroforestry system,
05:14with domestic species and multi-stored cropping, which helps to regenerate soils and restore biodiversity.
05:24Clearing all the trees off, you try to incorporate multiple layered trees,
05:31like say, for example, timber trees or fruit crops like jackfruit or mango and breadfruit like that.
05:39And again, you can bring in, if you really want to experiment with exotic crops,
05:46you can bring in rambutan or durian or whatever it is.
05:49But make sure that it is always done in an integrated system.
05:53Kerala doesn't need to choose between rubber or new exotic crops.
05:57What is important is to find ways that enable farmers to make a good living
06:01and the environment thrive too.
06:03Kerala is national webs
06:24Kerala leaves trees
06:25Kerala opens
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