Worried Campco says the trade is facing an existential threat; young in growers' families look for alternatives.
The ‘fruit rot’ disease affecting areca plantations in eight district could result in the loss of Karnataka’s main commercial crop for the next few years if urgent steps are not taken to check it, industry leaders say.
“The disease has gobbled up about 70% of the crop in eight districts, including Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Uttara Kannada, Shimoga, Kodagu, Chikmagalur and Hassan, besides Kasargod in Kerala,” Konkodi Padmanabha, president of the Mangalore-based multi state arecanut co-operative, Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Co-operative (Campco), said.
Campco is rushing two delegations to Bangalore and to Thiruvananthapuram, to impress upon the chief ministers of Karnataka and Kerala Siddaramaiah and Oomen Chandy to sanction financial compensation to planters who have suffered losses. Members from seven trade associations of planters and trade from two states will form part of the teams.
The disease, coming on the heels of the “threat” that imports from Bangladesh are posing to the Indian areca industry, may be the last nail in the coffin, industry leaders fear.
Bangladesh is dumping low quality areca powder in Indian markets that industry feels is Indonesian import. The Bangladeshi import, marked much below the superior Indian areca, is preferred by manufacturers of areca products because of its low price.
“That poses an existential threat to Indian industry and amounts to some kind of proxy trade war,” says Padmanabha. “The cooperative has written to the director general of foreign trade (DGFT) demanding that the Bangladeshi areca being dumped in India be subjected to chemical analysis for toxic additives,” he added.
According to statistics available with the DGFT, Bangladesh has exported areca worth `321 crores to India in 2011-12, a quantum jump from `18 crores just three years ago in 2008-09, Padmanabha said.
“That amounts to a mindboggling 66% out of total areca imports from seven Saarc countries under Saarc preferential trading arrangement (Sapta),” Padmanabha pointed out.
“We were mystified as to how Bangladesh could export so much areca, considering it is not known to grow the crop in large quantities. Our inquiries revealed that our eastern neighbour does not have much land under areca and was importing low grade areca from Indonesia and was re-exporting it to India,” Padmanaba said.
“Till last year, I had all my three sons helping me, but one after another, they have all taken up jobs in Bangalore, leaving me and my brother, both aged over 60 years, to manage over 200 acres of areca plantation, half of which is not hit by disease,” Nagesh Bhat Ankola, among the largest plantation owners in Uttara Kannada district, told dna.
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