ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to elucidate the context that influences and structures the decisions and practices of cultivators in that part of South India by giving a general overview of Kerala's society, development and environment, and by discussing socioeconomic and technical-material conditions for agriculture in Kerala. Moreover, infrastructure and lifestyles in Kerala's urban and urban areas are similar, and social indicators of development are only slightly different. Urbanization (or rurbanization) takes place less in the cities than alongside state and national highways and at intersections of country roads. Kerala's unique development pattern and its outstanding accomplishments, achieved without much foreign aid, have gained respect in international circles. Kerala's development has become known as the Kerala model of development, a designation originally put forward by the Centre for Development Studies. Economic underdevelopment and bio-physical factors, rather than a particular model of development, have influenced the relative environmental sustainability.
