Kuriyan, who was a part of a 24-member Indian delegation that visited Latin American coffee origins recently, told The Financial Express that, ``after we travelled coffee concentrated countries like Brazil, Columbia, Costa Rica and Guatemala, we felt that India has to concentrate on developing weather-resistant and draught-susceptible varieties of seeds.''

He said the Coffee Board should take an initiative to conduct research towards developing suitable varieties for India considering factors like climatic conditions and high yield. He also emphasised the importance of branding and called for better packaging. He said Columbia practices the pruning system once in four years to improve the yield and quality of the produce. In India, currently pruning was beingadopted only in tea industry. ``Pruning suits coffee plantations in Latin American countries as they have high density plantations, good weather conditions and volcanic soil. However, in India with the available plant varieties and weather conditions it would be difficult to adopt pruning system unless we developed special seed varieties susceptible to our weather conditions.''

He said homogeneity was another factor the delegation noticed in these coffee origins. ``Our plantations have no homogeneity in terms of size and quality of berries as we uses many varieties of saplings. To compete in the global market India needs to develop seed varieties that maintain uniformity in size and quality,'' he felt.

Latin American plantations restricted the life of the plants at 40 years while India still keep plants of 60 to 65 years, he said. ``We lack systematic replanting that is essential to get high yields of better quality,'' he suggested.

Kuriyan said another feature of the Latin American plantations was thehigh density planting that would give a yield in the range of 2500 to 3000 kilograms of coffee beans per hectare as against 1300 kgs in India.

Currently, Kuriyan is in the process of making a film based on his Latin American study tour. The film along with a set of observations made by the delegation will be handed over to the Coffee Board and The United Planters Association of South India (Upasi) in a week's time he said.

Later in the month, Upasi in association with Coffee Board will hold a seminar to consider the observations and also to chalk out proactive measures towards researches and improving the yield and quality.

India coffee industry also lacked lab and cup tasting facilities at curing level as also proper handling, warehousing, storing, packaging facilities and awareness campaigns unlike in the Latin American countries, he added.