Coffee Board plans to create database of plantations

The Coffee Board and the ministry of commerce were planning to introduce several new schemes in the 12th Five-Year Plan, beginning April 2012, to encourage growers to increase the production of coffee and strengthen the plantation sector, a top Coffee Board official said.

“We are fine-tuning draft proposals of the 12th Plan for the coffee plantation sector. The proposals will be finalised within a month. Our existing schemes serve the purpose quite well. But we think some modifications may be required in some of those,” Board chairman Jawaid Akhtar told Business Standard on the sidelines of the 53rd annual coffee conference of the Karnataka Planters Association.

 

He said the Board was planning to come out with a database of coffee plantations in the country to find how much area was under the commodity, which estate was growing how much and the type of coffee grown in each estate. The database would be created with the satellite map data. “It will help us introduce new schemes for the growth of the sector,” he said.

Apart from this, the farm mechanisation scheme will be fine-tuned. “The industry has accepted the scheme introduced during the fourth year of the 11th Plan very well. During the first seven months of the current financial year, the Board disbursed a subsidy of Rs 10 crore. This scheme would be further fine-tuned in the 12th Plan with higher allocation,” Akhtar said.

The exact amount of financial allocation for this scheme would be finalised shortly, depending on how much the industry would absorb in the current financial year, he said.

Under the farm mechanisation subsidy programme, the Board is offering a subsidy of 25 per cent for growers who hold 20 hectares or above, with a limit of Rs 4.5 lakh for machines bought. For growers holding less than 20 hectares, the subsidy is 50 per cent, limited to Rs 2 lakh for machines. For self-help groups, the subsidy is 50 per cent, the ceiling being Rs 5 lakh.

The Coffee Board was also in the process of expediting the process of transfer of technology developed at its labs to growers on the field. The system of delivery would be strengthened, he said.

Akhtar added, to achieve productivity enhancement, the Board was working on different programmes. Mechanisation was one such scheme that served twin purposes of shortage of labour and productivity enhancement. It helped growers increase their efficiency by up to 75 per cent, as they did not have to incur any expenditure on laboruers and their skill upgrade.

On the growers’ demand for waiver of interest on the Coffee Debt Relief Package, Akhtar said: “The Board has recommended to the ministry of commerce to waive interest on the loans taken by small and medium growers holding up to 10 hectares. There was rescheduling of loans for those holding above 10 hectares. There was no expenditure on the part of the government for them.

The ministry is examining the proposal. And, on the basis of their approval, we will implement the proposal.”

He said the Board was also reworking the replanting subsidy scheme for the 12th Plan. This would be announced by the end of the current financial year.

Vijayalaxmi Joshi, additional secretary in the ministry of commerce, said a surplus scenario in coffee production was likely to return on the world scene, with Brazil and Vietnam expected to produce a record 60 million and 20 million bags, respectively, in 2012-13. “This may bring back the surplus scenario, with a profound effect on prices,” she said.