In a bid to increase production while enhancing job opportunities in the rural sector, the Coffee Board has chalked out a plan to take coffee cultivation into non-traditional areas (NTAs) and the north eastern region (NER) on the lines of successful cultivation practiced in the tribal regions of Andhra Pradesh (AP).
The coffee cultivation would prevent the tribal farmers from switching over to other crops frequently while providing them settled agriculture base with standard income, Coffee Board chairman G V Krishna Rau said.
Talking to FE on the sidelines of the 49th annual conference of Karnataka Planters’ Association here recently, Rau said at least 30,000 tribal farmers in AP are involved in coffee cultivation. When compared to other southern states, AP is a non-traditional region for coffee cultivation. However, the efforts of the AP government coupled with the technical assistance from the Coffee Board during the past two Five Year Plan period has fine-tuned the AP tribal farmers to produce around 4,000 tonne of coffee a year, he said.
Currently, the AP tribal farmers have covered 25,000 hectare under coffee cultivation. In the Eleventh Plan, the coffee plantation coverage is expected to increase by 24,000 hectares while engaging around 25,000 more tribal farmers under the coffee net, Rau said.