India is likely to miss an opportunity to achieve a record coffee production again, due to incessant rains across major growing regions in south India over the last few days. The coffee production in crop year 2015-16 might be lower than the earlier projections due to the occurrence of cyclonic rains.
Major coffee growing regions in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have witnessed incessant rains over the last few days and many places have reported dropping of seeds across Arabica plantations.
“When the fruit is fully ripe and there is rain, the fruit gets water logged and splits open and the seed falls on to the ground. In many instances, the seed is lost. As a result, there is a potential damage to Arabica crop this year, though it is too early to predict the exact quantum,” Anil Kumar Bhandari, Member, Coffee Board told FE.
The state-owned Coffee Board, in its post-blossom forecast, estimated an all-time high bean production at 355,600 metric tonne for 2015-16, a growth of 8.7% over the previous year. Harvesting of Arabica crop has commenced in many growing regions in Karnataka, which accounts for 70% of India’s coffee output. Robusta harvest commences at the end of December or early January.
Coffee Board has projected Arabica production at 110,000 tonne and Robusta at 245,300 tonne for 2015-16. Final production for 2014-15 was 327,000 tonne. The Board’s post-blossom projections were based on the timely and adequate blossom and backing showers in the traditional areas and non-traditional areas. Also, area expansion in non-traditional areas like Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and other north-eastern region will contribute to the growth in production this year. However, the Board is yet to announce its post-monsoon forecast. “Normally, Arabica ripening starts in December. But this year, due to early blossom showers the ripening started in early November leading to early harvest,”Bhandari said.