Rubber production for FY 2007-08 is likely to drop significantly from the Rubber Board estimate of 8,74,000 tonne due to heavy and untimely rains in Kerala, traders said. After a significant drop in production in July, production recouped in August only to drop again in September. Tapping hours were restricted due to heavy day time rains and production has gone down in September by almost 50%, a planter said.
Planters speaking to FE, on the sidelines of the AGM of Association of Planters of Kerala, estimate the total annual output to drop by almost 20% from the Rubber Board’s target.
Expectations of production reaching normal levels after August were cut short by heavy and unexpected rains in September, a planter said. He estimates the September production to be lower than that of the July production. In July, production was shorter by 25,500 tonne from the Rubber Board estimates.
However, the provisional estimates of the state-run Rubber Board state that production fell by just 8,000 tonne in September to 69,000 tonne, as against the Board’s target of 77,000 tonne. Fall in output in August was only 6% compared with 39% in July and industry experts viewed this as a sign of production recovering to normal levels.
Encouraged by the trend, the Board had also projected that the shortfall in output would be recouped by expected rise in production during the remaining months of the year.
Sources say that the Board is likely to revise its production target given the fact that rubber output is down by 16% to 320,220 tonne in April-September compared with 382,210 tonne in same period a year ago.
While some traders and planters claim that yield will rise and production will increase, as rubber trees are not tapped to their full capacity for the past 3-4 months, others say that the lost tapping hours cannot be made up in the short run.