100 years on, Tamil Nadu ahead of Kerala in coconut production

A joint paper by CPCRI Director P Chowdappa and AK Singh, Coconut Development Board (CDB) Chairman, observed that the process for collecting good seed nuts from select palms and selecting good seedlings at nursery-stage based on certain criteria began in 1918. 

“Thanks to the efforts of JS Patel and his team, the first hybrid was produced and planted at Nileshwar in 1934 and since then six coconut hybrids have been developed and released from CPCRI,” the paper said. CPCRI considers this as a huge achievement as developing and evaluating a new hybrid takes 20 years. 

A century later, coconut has come a long way and continues to achieve greater heights as it is now an important horticultural crop cultivated in 17 states and three union territories, making India the largest producer of coconuts, accounting for 31 per cent of the world production.

Coconut plays a significant role in poverty alleviation and employment generation besides providing a livelihood to 12 million families. “Coconut and its products, including coir, bring in Rs 3,000 crore annually as foreign exchange. The fact that 50 per cent of coconut production is consumed as raw nuts, shows its importance as a food crop and, with the demand likely to go up, the CDB is formulating strategies from 2016-17 onwards to meet the future demand of coconut,” said Singh.

“It was just coir that was the export item but during 2014-15 the export of products (except coir and coir products) rose by 13.5 per cent to Rs 1,312.38 crore and in the last fiscal it went up to Rs 1,450 crore. “This achievement is incredible as the overall picture of merchandise export from the country showed a negative trend,” said the paper. 

The total area under coconut cultivation is 19.76 lakh hectares of which Kerala alone accounts for 6.50 lakh hectares. However, in terms of production and productivity, Kerala is behind Tamil Nadu.