At Kuttanad, harvested paddy being packed in gunnybags. A file picture. Reliance's attempt to reach an agreement with the Kuttanad Development Society to buy its entire paddy harvest failed, apparently over the price. ONE of the most sensitive initiatives by Reliance Retail since its foray into the farm sector in Kerala in June 2007 was its attempt to procure rice from Kuttanad in Alappuzha district, where farmers have been in distress for long because of falling prices, labour shortage, high cost of inputs, shrinking area under cultivation, opposition to mechanisation, and high wages. Kerala, a chronically food deficit State, faces a serious shortage of rice this year following a steep drop in the quantity of rice available in neighbouring States for procurement for the public distribution system and by traders in the open market. In March-April, as prices in the open market shot up and before a calamitous spell of rain wiped out the summer rice harvest in many parts of Kuttanad, Reliance nearly clinched a deal with farmers of some self-help groups under the Kuttanad Development Society to buy two varieties of rice. Fr. Thomas Peelanikkal, KDS chairman, said one of these was a type of value-added rice produced using an indigenous process typical of Kuttanad and the other was an ordinary mill variety. Both were marketed by the KDS under the brand name