Karnataka Planters Association (KPA) said robusta coffee production would decline by 10% for the coffee season 2007-08.
In its post blossom estimation, the Coffee Board had projected the total production for the coffee season ending October 2008 at 2.91 lakh tonne. The arabica production was estimated at 1 lakh tonne and robusta at 1.91 lakh tonne. The arabica production will match the post monsoon projection released by the Coffee Board, but the robusta production will decline by 10% due to heavy rain in many coffee growing regions, said KPA chairman Jeffry Rebello.
Providing details over the 49th annual conference of KPA, which is scheduled from Tuesday in Bangalore, Rebello said the coffee plantation industry in the country has been witnessing several changes in the last five years. The white steam borer disease has been forcing most of the planters to switch over to robusta cultivation from arabica, he said.
?Our country was known for arabica but now robusta has been dominating the Indian coffee fields,? he said.
He said robusta cultivation increased to 1.90 lakh tonne in 2006-07 from 1.79 lakh tonne in 2001-02, while arabica plantation declined to 1 lakh tonne from 1.21 lakh tonne during the same period.
He urged the government to include the coffee growers, who have undertaken replanting operations during 2005-08, under the proposed loan-cum-replanting subsidy scheme, which is expected to be operative from 2007-08.
He also said the NCDEX and MCX have launched commodities exchanges in coffee. But these exchanges are not providing necessary risk mitigating mechanism to coffee growers and are mainly confined to trade and added that the commerce ministry should monitor the activities and ensure these exchanges become more useful to the growers and other market participants.