P. K. Madhavan stood proudly next to a young, sturdy mahogany tree, one of 100 he planted three years ago on his farm in Wayanad district in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
P. K. Madhavan stood proudly next to a young, sturdy mahogany tree, one of 100 he planted three years ago on his farm in Wayanad District in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
Madhavan’s 0.8 hectares of land in Meenangadi village used to be lush with cash crops coffee, black pepper and betel nut but two decades of drought and unseasonally heavy rain have decimated his yields.
Now the mahogany plantation is one of his only reliable sources of income, earning him up to 5,000 rupees (US$67) a year and all he has to do is keep the trees
Continuous downpours continue to batter major parts of India with states like Kerala and Karnataka pitted against severe rainfall. Death count has reached 42 in Kerala with more than 1 lakh people being shifted from flood-hit areas to highlands. IMD has issued red alert in 9 districts of Kerala which include Malappuram, Dukki, Thrissur, Wayanad, Kozhikode, Palakkad. State government has ordered all educational institutes to remain closed for the day.
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