Mangaloreans who would give a limb than cut a coconut palm are mowing them down to make way for more apartments, shops and offices than there is demand for them. In the past twelve years, area under coconut in the country has grown at an annual average of 0.3 percent, says the Coconut Development Board. But urbanization in the coconut growing areas of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka which between them account for eighty percent of the country’s coconut production of 23.35 billion nuts, is not the reason for the glacial spread of coconut gardens.
It is competition from palm oil. Between 2000 and 2012, the world’s production of palm oil increased 141 percent, followed by that of soyabean oil and rapeseed oil. The output of cooking oil in general rose 72 percent but production of coconut oil declined by around one percent.
Ironically, in a country where cooking oil is the number one food import item with a tab of $9.34 billion in 2013-14, the supply of coconut oil exceeds demand keeping prices down because the market is flush with competing and cheaper palm oil.
Import duties were raised to 7.5 percent and 15 percent for crude and refined palm oil respectively last December from 2.5 percent and ten percent earlier. In 2013-14, corpra (from which coconut oil is extracted) prices were below the floor fixed by the government, as procurement by Nafed did little to move market prices. The agency lacks storage facilities, and procurement is limited to just ninety days.
If this trend continues, ‘we are worried about the future,’ says P Chowdappa, director of the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute in Kerala’s coastal district of Kasargod, across the Karnataka border. The institute founded in 1916, was taken over by the government in 1969, when trade-financed commodity boards were abolished. The research centres it had spawned for spices, cashew, oil palm and coastal agriculture have been hived off into independent institutes and directorates; CPCRI focuses on research in coconut, arecanut and cocoa.
What is grown between palms will be more paying that what is harvested from them. Inter-crops will sustain the coconut economy, says P Chowdappa, CPCRI director. Palms planted 177 to a hectare can give an annual income of about Rs 40,000 but with intercrops like pepper, banana, cocoa, arecanut, pineapple and turmeric (depending on the region), the per hectare income can be ten times as much.
Farmers will also have to put coconuts to better value use than plain vanilla cooking oil. Cold-pressed extra virgin coconut oil is one spin-off plugged at the beauty and health conscious for its high lauric acid content ? ‘next to mother’s milk,’ says Chowdappa.
Neera, or the sap of the inflorescence, is another income booster. Being rich in vitamins, anti-oxidants and blood pressure-lowering potassium it is peddled as a nutritious drink. Chowdappa says it has more sugar than cane and must be kept refrigerated so it does not ferment into toddy, an alcoholic drink. It took some persuasion for the Kerala government to revise it excise policy in 2014 and allow sale of neera as a non-alcoholic beverage in the state. More work will have to go into neera processing to extend its shelf life, so it can be bottled and mass marketed.
The shortage of labour and skills are also factors that coconut growers have to confront. There are few recruits to coconut climbing as a vocation. Mechanical devices have not been very successful. The most popular is the one devised by Chamberi Joseph and named after him. Dwarf varieties developed by CPCRI and other institutes address the issue to an extent. Some farmers prefer dwarfs designed for tender coconuts which are quite in demand as natural thirst quenchers.
Among the promising inter-crops is cocoa. At 15,000 tonnes, India has just 0.3 percent of the world’s share. It is grown mainly in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. India’s person consumption of cocoa is 40 grams but growing. Demand for cocoa exceeds supply. Prices are volatile as they are yoked to the international market. Farmers came to grief in last decade when prices slumped.
‘Cocoa was selling for six rupee a kg, so we uprooted it,’ says K Kanakraj, 43, of village Semmedu in Coimbatore district. ‘Now it is selling for Rs 200 a kg of bean.’
Cadbury India (now Mondolez India) and Campco, a Mangaluru-based cooperative, are the main buyers of cocoa. Demand exceeds supply. CPCRI has recommended contract farming under tripartite agreements with the government being a party, so that farmers are not left in the lurch should global prices fall.
‘India can become a global leader in cocoa production without additional investment in land,’ says Chowdappa. India’s productivity is higher than the international average. ‘Our quality is on par with that of Ghana,’ he says.
This could well happen. Bananas are an example. If the district of Jalgaon in Maharashtra were a state it would rank fifth in India in banana production. All because of a company called Jain Irrigation which introduced a variety called Grande Naine, supplied tissue cultured saplings and taught farmers the uses of drip irrigation and fertigation. The integration of private corporate buyers and research institutes with farmers can bring about a similar change in cocoa cultivation as well.
About the author
(Vivian Fernandes is consulting editor to (smartindianagriculture.in)
