Nafed has agreed to procure de-fibered raw coconut, besides copra, from this year. The procurement price and the quantum are yet to be finalised.
It is in a meeting between Union agriculture ministry officials, Nafed top brass and Kerala MPs in New Delhi that the procurement agency made this commitment, sources said.
Farmer organisations had urged procurement of raw nuts at Rs 6 per nut. Although shifting the procurement from copra to raw coconut had been a long-standing demand of farmers, Centre had been hesitant, citing the quality assessment issue involved in procuring raw nuts. The meeting on Thursday had offered procurement of de-fibered nuts as an acceptable solution.
Last month, the Kerala government had offered to procure four crore raw coconuts at a price of Rs 4.40 per nut. The state had earmarked Rs 2.6 crore as subsidy component.
State-run Kerafed is to be the nodal agency for the procurement scheme. About 3.5 lakh coconut farmers in the State are badly hit by the mite disease in the trees and steady decline in nut prices. At present raw nut fetches about Rs 2.50 on average.