Feb 15: The aroma is slowly going out of coffee, judging by the trends in coffee cultivation over the last few years. In fact, the so-called exponential growth predicted by the Coffee Board in the area under coffee cultivation over time will, by all reckoning, probably remain a mirage.If anything, coffee cultivation has remained more or less stagnant over the 1990s. In 1991-92, the area under coffee showed just a marginal increase to 278,631 hectares against 270,821 hectares in the previous year. What is more, in subsequent years the increase in area was less than a thousand hectares per annum. Fears are now being expressed in certain quarters that if this trend continues, in due course the land under coffee cultivation may start witnessing a negative growth rate.
NL Sundareswara, director of Kollibyle Coffee Estate, Mudigere, in Karnataka's Chickmagalur district, said here on Thursday that newcomers are not willing to take up the risks involved in coffee growing. "Coffee cultivation has been witnessinga lack of interest due to urbanisation. Agriculture is not as progressive as other industries because of the fact that it involves a lot of speculation," he added.
The industry is also facing a more short-term problem: "There has been a dearth of labour for coffee-growing and picking for the last few months. Recently, the number of skilled workmen available in Chickmagalur area has drastically come down as they have been drafted for election campaigns."
He said the campaigners have been given a wage of Rs 100 per day plus food, free transport and liquor. "As our wage package is less compared to this, the condition is expected to continue till next week."
MR Nagaraj, another leading plantation owner in Chickmagalur, echoed the sentiments, and said that existing coffee growers may move towards other commodities, including pepper, ginger and cardamom, as interest in coffee production is on the wane. "A new disease involving the Arabica variety (of coffee) noticed in Sunticoppa and Somawarpet area in 1997is still under investigation by scientists of the Central Coffee Research Institute (CCRI). The organism is yet to be identified, and that is yet another deterrent for coffee growers," Nagaraj said.
The Indian crop is in no position to influence global prices, although some fine connoisseur coffee is cultivated by a few plantations. On the contrary, world trends tend to affect domestic coffee prices. This was witnessed during 1996-97 when domestic prices rose phenomenally due to the overall decline in coffee production in several coffee-producing countries, says Cothas Prakas, managing partner, Cothas Coffee Co, Bangalore.
V Rama Rao, managing director, Mysore Coffee Curing Works Ltd, Chickmagalur, says that there exists a wide gap in the productivity levels between the region and the traditional areas of cultivation. However, he said, financial support for coffee growers from institutions like Nabard and commercial banks is adequate.
Newcomers are not venturing into this field thanks primarily to lackof infrastructure facilities like procurement, transportation, curing, storing and arranging for disposal of coffee at auctions of the Indian Coffee Traders Association, felt another coffee grower from Coorg. There also has been a steady decline in the Coffee Board's lending operations during the Eighth Plan period. According to the Coffee Board, this is because of the dwindling surplus pool owing to the scrapping of the pool system and the resultant poor loan payment situation.
Interestingly, in the past three years ginger cultivation in Karnataka's Coorg district has been threatening to disturb the ecosystem in coffeeland. Ginger, a cash crop, has been fast taking over most of the paddy fields in the region. According to officials in the forest department, almost 20 per cent of the total 47,566 hectares of paddy fields have switched over to ginger.
According to industry sources, many coffee growers too are leasing out their border lands and grazing areas held by them for ginger cultivation beforeconverting them into plantations for obvious economic reasons. Many of the fields are leased by the owners for ginger cultivation for a period of two to three years.
This is not a case of interplantation. Sources say that the ginger crop is directly making inroads into the main coffee and paddy lands which were earlier earmarked for coffee or paddy.
Consolidated Coffee Ltd, a subsidiary of Tata Tea Ltd, introduced a change in its earlier agricultural practice in which cardamom was interplanted in its coffee areas in Coorg. This has now, according to senior officials of the company, been removed with focused attention being given to coffee in planted with coffee while vigorous measures continue to intensify the cardamom crop in areas planted with cardamom. "These measures are expected to improve the yields of both crops in the medium term," say officials.
The coffee crop of the company for 1996-97 totalled 5,787 tonnes (inclusive of 4,266 tonnes of the Robusta variety, which was marginally lower than therecord crop of 4,325 tonnes during 1994-95) as against 5,685 tonnes during 1995-96.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
