Attappadi
More actions
| Attappadi | |
|---|---|
| Attappady, Attapadi | |
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Growing Region | Western Ghats |
| Geography | |
| Country | India |
| Province/State | Kerala |
| District | Palakkad District |
| Coordinates | 11.09, 76.60 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 730 km² |
| Terrain | Approximately the Attappadi block; forested hills on the Tamil Nadu border |
| Growing history | |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Attappadi (also Attappady) is a landrace cannabis growing area in the forested hills of Attappadi in Palakkad District, Kerala, India, near the border with Tamil Nadu. It is in the Western Ghats growing region and is drawn on the Attappadi block. Attappadi is a tribal area of the district.[1] In 2005 forest officials there spoke of "250 sq km of forest where ganja is cultivated".[2] Police and excise teams destroyed plantations in its forests in 2025 and 2026, one of them of about 10,000 plants.[3][1][4]
Cultivation
Tribal growers and migrants from Idukki
Rajesh Ramachandran reported in Outlook in 2005 that the Irula, Muduga and Kurumba had always grown ganja for their own use, and that in some Kurumba villages people who had given up shifting cultivation traded ganja for rice. Over the previous ten years migrants from Idukki, "with a long history of ganja cultivation", had made Attappadi "a haven for hemp growers". They used tribal guides to find forest tracts out of sight of the foresters and burnt down large trees to clear the ground. In these clearings they grew neela chadayan, which Ramachandran called "the best Kerala strain", and forest officials had photographed nurseries in the forest where the seed was raised in polythene bags. A tribal former farm hand from Dundoor told him that tribal growers raised a few plants without fertiliser or pesticide, while the migrants' plots held at least 1,000 plants an acre. Tony Thomas of the organisation One Earth One Life, who had gone with more than ten raiding parties, estimated at least 700 acres under organised cultivation by the migrants, and officials of the Narcotics Control Bureau believed that most of the high-end ganja grown there left by sea in the form of oil. Settlers from Tamil Nadu traded ganja in Coimbatore, 48 km away.[2]
Raids, 2006–2016
In March 2006 the Narcotics Control Bureau and the Customs division of Kozhikode destroyed plants worth Rs 13 crore on the international market at Bhoothayar in the Attapadi forest range.[5] Between 20 and 25 August 2006, acting on a tip-off from tribal organisations, the police, the forest department and the Excise Department destroyed nearly 10,290 plants in ten places in the Attappadi forest. The divisional forest officer at Mannarkkad said there was much less cultivation than the year before because of frequent raids.[6] In 2016 the Excise Department destroyed 300 plants on 6.5 acres in Attappadi; Onmanorama reported that it was only the second plantation detected in 15 years.[7]
Since 2025
In October 2025 officers of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, the district anti-narcotics unit and the Pudur police walked nearly five hours through forest to the foothills of Sathyakkallumala, where they destroyed about 10,000 plants, each about three months old, on about 60 cents (0.6 acre). The police said that it was believed to be the state's largest illegal cannabis plantation.[3]
On 19 September 2026 an Excise team destroyed 1,566 mature plants in six plantations about 4 km inside the forest near Kadugumanna, near the Tamil Nadu border. The plantations had no houses near them, and the growers had not been identified.[1] On 24 September the district anti-narcotics special action force and the Agali police destroyed about 7,300 plants between Ponnakkal Mala and Ankanyan Chola in Pudur panchayat: about 1,600 plants some six weeks old in 160 prepared beds, and 5,700 grown plants in 475 beds on the eastern side of Ponnakkal Mala. The growers had reportedly stored water from forest streams and laid drip irrigation to the beds.[4]
Appellations
No appellation pages exist for this growing area yet.
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for this growing area yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 MV Desk (19 September 2026). "Excise officials destroy 1,566 cannabis plants found deep inside Palakkad forest". Metro Vaartha. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ramachandran, Rajesh (26 September 2005). "Stone Age". Outlook. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 PTI (15 October 2025). "Massive ganja farm destroyed in Kerala's Attappady forest". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 PTI (25 September 2026). "Over 7,000 Cannabis Plants Destroyed in Keralam's Palakkad Forest". Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ UNI (24 March 2006). "NCB destroys Ganja plants worth Rs 13 crore". Oneindia. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ UNI (26 August 2006). "Ganja plants worth Rs 10.5 crore destroyed in Attappadi". Oneindia. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ "Psychedelic 'Idukki Gold', made in Andhra & Orissa". Onmanorama. 27 July 2016. Retrieved 19 October 2026.