KPA to adopt best global practices

The Karnataka Planters’ Association (KPA) is planning to emulate good cultivation practices of Vietnam to increase production and productivity levels of Indian coffee industry in the near future.

After the recent field visit to Vietnam, the planters’ body will appeal to the Coffee Board for sending scientists to this South East Asian nation for learning scientific practices suitable for domestic condition.

“Cultivation practices like higher spacing, complete irrigation, higher fertiliser use among others are the key factors contributing to higher productivity of coffee in Vietnam. We plan to emulate these practices here to boost productivity,” Sahadev Balakrishna, president of Karnataka Planters’ Association (KPA), said here. He also said that they would give representation to the Coffee Board for prescribing scientific practices in the country.

Vietnam produces close to 800,000 tonne of coffee per annum as compared to 300,000 tonne in India. Over 90 per cent of the produce in Vietnam comprise of robusta variety and the county determines robusta prices in the international market. “Except good cultivation practices, the country has a natural advantage of longer drought free period, open condition of cultivation and volcanic soil which contribute to higher productivity of coffee,” Marvin Rodriguez, vice-president of KPA, said.

Despite such a natural advantage, India can catch up with the productivity levels of Vietnam, he added. Referring to domestic consumption of coffee, he said that domestic consumption of coffee in Vietnam was very high compared to India.

“Vietnam consumes around 80,000 tonne of coffee for a population of 86 million, where as Indian consumption is hovering around 100,000 tonne for 1.2 billion population,” he added.He also said that there was a distinct coffee culture, mainly of robusta in Vietnam.

Recently, India has shown around 8 per cent CAGR in coffee consumption with the advent of retail coffee culture in the country. “We need to popularise coffee among youth to boost our domestic coffee consumption,” Rodriguez said.

He also said that coffee production should be encouraged in the non-traditional areas to compete with other emerging countries.