Cashing in on the growing relevance of Wayan ad as a tourist destination and augmenting the low returns from coffee, estates are slowly started emulating their Coorg counter parts and diversifying into home stays. Wayanad Coffee Growers Association president K ~oidu told FE that besides the low returns from the over 67,000 hecters of coffee plantation in the district, growers were now facing a severe labour crunch.

With better employment prospects in Karnataka, especially with workers moving to the growing sugarcane cultivation and central schemes for job assurances, migration of pluckers from Karnataka to Wayanad was on the wane, he said. And with the season already in full swing, several growers will be forced to abandon plucking beans this time.

Leading planter Rajesh KG who has already launched his home stay with a few wood houses amidst the estates plantations said that another reason for the Karnataka workers not coming to Kerala was the "Veerappan" factor. With the death of Veerappan and the conditions now calm, work had resumed in several quarries, which attracted more workers.

On the over 75,400 coffee holdings in Wayanad, there were only 349 large growers. The majority were small holdings ofless than 2 hectares and with the high cost of production and low returns, growers were forced to look at additional revenue sources, Moidu said.

------------------------------------------------------------------