Production dip will not hit India’s coffee exports

With the coffee production predominantly handled by small growers, the Coffee Board had been initiating steps to boost productivity by assisting them in replanting exercise. 

Nearly 75 to 80 per cent of the targeted 25,000 hectares of replanting in the current fiveyear plan would be achieved by the end of the plan period falling next year. Though there was a lag in the initial years with only 50 per cent of annual target achieved, from last year the trend has been improving.

Four years from now, India will be hosting the International Coffee Conference (ICC) in the Garden City. This will be the fifth such conference to be held by the ICC. Though Papua New Guinea had pitched in for the event, India got the support from most of the Asian nations to host the event, which takes place once in four years, he added.

Shanmuga Sundaram said as part of the Board’s plan to take Coffee plantations to the Himalayan region, pilot projects were done in Himachal Pradesh covering 10 hectares (ha) and in Darjeeling on 500 ha. Recently, a group of farmers from HP visited the Araku Valley, near Visakhapatnam, where tribals had taken up coffee plantation in a big way. The Coffee Board planned to enhance coffee plantations in non-traditional areas to 112,000 ha by 2022 from the current level of 72,000 ha.