Poor rains may hit coffee output: KPA

Coffee production in the country may take a hit for 2011-12 crop period on the back of sporadic and patchy rainfall in the major growing regions of Karnataka and other coffee producing states.

While the arabica crop is likely to be affected by insufficient rainfall during the February-March period, robusta production is expected to fall due to cyclical reasons.

“A combination of untimely and insufficient rain has resulted in an arabica blossom below its potential. This is expected to drag production for the 2011-12 crop year,” Sahadev Balakrishna, president of Karnataka Planters’ Association (KPA) said.

Arabica production during the last crop year was also low due to untimely rainfall and pest attack in the major growing regions of Karnataka.

Similarly, factors like crop cycle along with sporadic rainfall will impact the overall production levels of robusta in the 2011-12 crop season.

“For robusta, the ideal blossom rains is during the first week of March. However, lower rainfall has adversely affected the blossom,which will impact production of this variety,” he said.

He, also, said that a weak crop cycle year for robusta will also affect the overall production.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka Planters’ Association has pegged post-harvest production of robusta crop at 200,000 tonne in the country.

“In Karnataka, post-harvest robusta crop was estimated to be 130,000 tonnes,” Balakrishna said.

India produces around 300,000 tonne of coffee per annum. While over 65 per cent of total production come from robusta variety, remaining is contributed from arabica.

The country exports 70 per cent of coffee to other countries like European Union nations, Russia and other parts of the world.

Major coffee growing regions of the country comprises of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala among others.