Coffee yields are languishing because Indian growers have failed to create a buzz around the beverage, as other major coffee producers have done.
Growers and traders may be excused for considering the Coffee Board’s output estimate of 3.08 lakh tonnes of the plantation crop in 2010-11 a trifle optimistic. An output of more than three lakh tonnes was last recorded in 2001-02. Hence, the lack of self-belief among growers is understandable. Yields of arabica, a premium variety from which Indian coffee derives its reputation, have dropped since the mid-1990s, from 750 kg per hectare to 500 kg per at present. The moot point is why Indian coffees, arabica in particular, have failed to respond to the encouraging trend in world prices since 2005.
Arabica accounts for a third of the country’s 2009-10 coffee output of 2.7 lakh tonnes and robusta about two lakh tonnes per annum. Till about the mid-1990s, arabica accounted for about 40 per cent of the total output. Having notched up an output of 1.2 lakh tonnes in 2001-02, arabica output has been on the decline, despite an increase in cultivated area. Evidently, it has never really recovered from the crash in world coffee prices at the turn of the century, and the subsequent spells of drought and pest attacks. Rising temperatures in the higher altitudes of the Chikmagalur region render the arabica variety vulnerable to pests such as white stem borer and yellow rust. Robusta is less prone to pest infestations; therefore, its cost of cultivation is lower than arabica’s — a factor that could offset its lower price realisation. The hilly arabica terrain limits mechanisation options to raise productivity and reduce costs, while skilled labour is increasingly hard to come by. There are, however, fewer constraints to increasing robusta yields.
These problems, however, do not entirely explain the stagnation in coffee yields. All major coffee-growing countries face similar challenges, including higher labour costs than in India, and yet seem to beat them back. The crux of the matter, it appears, is that Indian growers are not passionate about coffee. They have failed to create a buzz around the beverage, which is a striking feature of such major coffee producers as Brazil. Half the growers, with assured income from other sources, spend more time away from the estate — a remarkable fact for a crop with not just an assured international market (which soaks up 70 per cent of India’s coffee) but, more significantly, a rapidly growing domestic market. The domestic market’s annual consumption has nearly doubled from 55,000 tonnes in 1999 to one lakh tonnes in 2009, up about 6 per cent per annum. Most of that growth has taken place in the ‘non-South’ regions. The credit for this spurt goes to the Coffee Days and Baristas, but the rest of the coffee community has pitched in as well. Coffee will continue to grow in popularity, with the young generation in particular. If Indian growers do not pick up the cue, other producers will. In this promising scenario, an output of three lakh tonnes should be the norm rather than the exception.
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