Kerala slipping in coconut cultivation

Kerala, the land of 'Kera' (coconut tree), has been steadily slipping in area under cultivation of coconut losing ground to neighbours Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Kerala’s share in area under coconut cultivation in the country has fallen sharply from 57 per cent in the early 1990s to 43 per cent in 2008, while Tamil Nadu and Karnataka together accounted for 41.43 per cent of the total coconut production of 14,744 million nuts a year, according to current year’s  Economic Survey of the Kerala Planning Board.

In India, coconut is grown in an area of 1.90 million hectares with Kerala accounting for 7.81 lakh hectares, covering 38 per cent of the net cropped areas of the state.

A silverlinging, however, is that the production of coconut in the state had shown an uptrend of 2.17 per cent in 2008-09 after declining consecutively in three previous years.

According to farming experts, fragmentation of palm gardens into housing plots and as sites for commercial constructions were a major factor that contributed to the shrinkage of area under cultivation over the years.

However, farmers hold that steady fall in coconut prices was a factor that compelled them to look for other crops that ensure better returns.

“Coconut price has been stagnating at low levels compared to sharp increase in input costs. So, small and medium scale farmers tend to turn to other crops and vegetables, which require less investment and guarantee reasonable returns in a short period,” Balakrishnan, a farmer from Maniyur in Kozhikode District told PTI.

Though the support price of Rs4,450 per quintal was announced last year, there have been widespread complaints that the farmers at the lower rungs did not get the benefit due to problems in procurement mechanism.