Naandi Foundation, an NGO, has renewed its commitment to support the tribal coffee growers in Araku Valley region by entering into a tripartite agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government and Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) here in the presence of Jairam Ramesh, Union minister of state for commerce.
As per the agreement, while the government will extend soft loans to tribal farmers, ITDA will provide coffee saplings and implements besides monitoring the entire programme on a monthly basis; the Naandi will take care of organic certification, process coffee and market linkages. “We have exported about 70 tonne of organic coffee to Norway, the UK and France,” Priti Rao, Araku Organic Coffee project in Naandi said. In the current year, it has committed to selling about 300 tonne. As against 4,000 tonne coffee being produced in the valley about 1,000 tonne are organic coffee.
Responding to the development, Ramesh said that the there is need for opening ‘new windows’ for marketing the agriculture products, especially cultivated by the tribal population. He said that the Coffee Board is investing about Rs 40 crore in the development of coffee in the five years. Besides coffee, the minister also asked the foundation to take up marketing of pepper, which is also being grown by the tribal farmers in the region. “Though there is no agreement for pepper marketing, the Naandi Foundation can take up marketing of organic pepper grown in the region on the lines of coffee,” Ramesh said.
To recall, the Araku Oragnic coffee project was originally started in 2001, as part of Naandi’s sustainable livelihood initiatives. As of now, it has covered 8,000 farmers across four mandals – Araku, Dumbriguda, Hukumpeta and Anantagiri. However, with this renewal of the agreement the foundation will additionally operate two more mandals – Paderu and Pedabayulu, thus taking the total number of farmers under organic coffee cultivation to about 12,000.
Cashewnut board
The Centre has accorded in-principle approval to establish a separate cashewnut board, said Union minister of state for commerce Jairam Ramesh. Speaking to media in Hyderabad on Friday, the minister said that he recommended that the proposed board must be located out of Kerala, since the State accounts for less than 10% of cashewnut plantations. “Andhra Pradesh has enhanced its cashew production by using NREGA and reached the status of second largest State in the country,” Ramesh pointed out. He preferred that the cashewnut board be located either in Hyderabad or Visakhapatnam.