Prices of arecanut have crashed after the Union government banned the use of plastic sachets as packing material for gutkha.
Arecanut prices have tumbled to R100-105 per kg from R140-145 per kg last month, said Konkadi Padmanabha, president of Central Arecanut Processing and Marketing Co-operative (Campco), a Karnataka-based multi-state cooperative society for arecanut farmers.
Padmanabha said the gutka industry consumes around 80% of the red variety arecanut produced in the country. Now due to the ban, the gutka producers have almost stopped their manufacturing and are no longer procuring arecanut from farmers in Karnataka. ?As a result, trading of red arecanut has been completely stopped in the markets,? he said.
Red arecanut is mainly used in pan masala, gutkha, sweet supari, while white arecanut is used in chewing with pan leaves, lime and with or without tobacco.
CAMPCO’s managing director AS Bhatt said around 2-3 lakh bags (75-kg per bag) of arecanut are lying in 10-15 regional cooperative societies without buyers. Following this, he said middlemen are trying to take advantage of procuring arecanut from farmers at rock-bottom prices and build stock, he added.
Following the ban on plastic sachets, a small number of gutka producers have started packing in paper pouches but it is not success in the market. Arecanut is mainly cultivated in Karnataka, Kerala and Assam which together account for 86% of area. It is also grown in Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, West Bengal, Goa, Mizoram and Andhra Pradesh in small quantities.
Karnataka is most affected due to the ban on sale of gutkha in plastic pouch since the production in the state is of completely red arecanut. Campco has appealed to the government to provide minimum support price of R148 per kg for red variety and R114 for while variety arecanut to bail out the farmers from the currnet crisis. .
India, which produces around 5-lakh tonne of arecanut per year, is the largest producer of arecanut in the world with 53% of share in the global output. Around 75 lakh agricultural families are involved directly in areca cultivation.