The agricultural sector of Kerala, after prolonged stagnation resulting from increased production cost and declining profitability inter alia on account of rising wages, has adapted its crop structure to focus on less labour-intensive commercial crops. Such a structural change in the region's agricultural sector has coincided by the formation of the WTO and the new trading environment for agricultural commodities. Against this background, this article seeks answer to the following: has the restructuring effort by Kerala agriculture to salvage itself from the ‘high-cost syndrome’ been thwarted by the new trading environment resulting from the WTO?
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