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Trouble brews for coffee planters
Facing difficulties: A labourer plucking coffee berries on a Yercaud plantation.
YERCAUD: Coffee planters of Shevaroys Hills are facing problems this year.
The advanced ‘blossom showers’ have withered their hopes of having a bountiful yield, which, according to their conservative estimate, will be of a staggering loss of 40 per cent.
To add to their woes, a deficit South West Monsoon had ushered in the blossom showers in advance, i.e., in the month of February instead of the usual April, thus bringing in an unusual climatic condition in which the sun ‘scorched’ the coffee buds and flowers in large numbers.
‘Running blossom’The Chairman of the Shevaroy Planters’ Association Vijayann Rajes endorses the view, saying that the planters in Yercaud have undergone a strange climatic condition this year where the plants faced the ‘running blossom’, a condition wherein the plant possessed both buds and berries simultaneously.
The cruel April sun scorched the new blossoms, he adds.
After the dismal production of 2,775 tonnes in 2005 in which year the monsoons had failed miserably, the production in Shevaroys Hills this year is expected to be around 2,950 tonnes with Arabica chipping in with 2,900 tonnes and Robusta 50 tonnes. The planters had a healthy yield in 2007 of 3,200 tonnes. The hills record a steady downfall in rainfall realisation too over the years.
It was 1,694 mm in 2005 realised in 85 days while in 2007, it was 1,274 mm in just 63 days. The average rainfall for a decade is 1,498 mm.
“The rains should be moderate, timely and widespread,” point out planters.
Generally the yield of coffee in Shevaroys is very low compared to the plantations in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
The hills have 5,100 hectares of land under coffee plantation in the total cultivable area of 25,000 hectares.
Tribal people command nearly 21 per cent of the total coffee plantation.
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