Revival of coffee marketing unit evokes mixed reaction

The revival of the India Coffee Marketing Co-operative (Comark) has evoked a mixed reaction from industry experts and coffee board officials.

Industry experts are of the opinion that coffee market is vibrant enough to take care of the small and medium growers in this sector. But, Coffee Board officials are of the view that this will help provide the right prices to small and medium planters.

“Revival of Comark is expected to help the small and medium planters in getting right price for their produce,” a top Coffee Board official said on condition of anonymity. However, it should be well-managed and should cater to small planters across board, he added.

Comark had been founded in early 1990’s to provide marketing assistance to small and medium growers. The mandate of the organisation is to provide right price to the planters who are otherwise exploited by brokers due to less knowledge about the global market. However, the marketing federation was closed after some years of functioning due to unsustainable debt level.

Recently, Comark has been revived with the support of Karnataka government which has extended a grant of Rs10 crore to this co-operative. As a result of the state government’s assistance, Comark is expected to increase its procurement facility from the present levels.

It is also likely to increase the ware housing facility to store the produce for better prices. “Co-operative federation will help in disseminating the information that has been released by the coffee board,” the official added.

However, some of the industry experts have different opinion about this matter.

“Coffee market is proactive to take care of small and medium planters and planters have enough knowledge to sell their produce at right price. So, co-operative marketing federation will solve less purpose in this regard,” Ramesh Rajah, president of Coffee Exporters Association said.

He, also, said that co-operatives should be financially viable to operate and assist the small planters.

As part of the marketing assistance, Coffee Board is providing information regarding prices in the global and domestic market, export scenario, market analysis with possible price movement on a daily basis to all stake holders.

“Information provided by Coffee Board is more than enough to have a view of the market and get right price for the produce,” Rajah said.

Referring to loan facility and other financial support, he said that there were enough financial institutions to give loans to the planters and there was no need to depend on a co-operative marketing federation for any kind of debt.

A small planter from Karnataka, however, supported the formation of Comark.

“The revival of co-operative marketing federation will definitely help small planters as we will be able to get right price for our produce,” a small planter from Karnataka said.