Coffee Cultivation in India

In News

• As per data, India’s arabica coffee production will drop by 30% and robusta by 20% this harvest season ending January.

Major reason for this drop 

• Excessive rainfall, 
• Plant damage, 
• Bean splitting and 
• Berry dropping

Coffee Cultivation 

• Climatic Conditions:
  • Coffee plants require a hot and humid climate with temperatures ranging between 15°C and 28 °C and rainfall from 150 to 250 cm.
  • Frost, snowfall, high temperature above 30°C and strong sun shine is not good for coffee crops and is generally grown under shady trees.
  • Dry weather is necessary at the time of ripening of the berries.
  • Stagnant water is harmful and the crop is grown on hill slopes at elevations from 600 to 1,600 metres above sea level.
  • Well drained, loams containing a good deal of humus and minerals like iron and calcium are ideal for coffee cultivation.
• Facts: 
  • Karnataka alone accounts for around 80% of the country’s total coffee production.
  • India currently has over three lakh small and medium coffee farmers.
  • India ranks 6th among the world’s 80 coffee producing countries, with some of the finest robusta and some top-notch arabica cultivated.
  • The cultivation is mainly done in the Southern States of India:
    • Karnataka – 54%
    • Kerala – 19%
    • Tamil Nadu – 8%

Image Courtesy: Coffee BI 

• Nearly 70% of India’s coffee is exported, largely to European and Asian markets.
• Coffee in India is traditionally grown in the rainforests of the Western Ghats in South India, covering Chikmagalur, Kodagu (Coorg), Wayanad, the Shevaroy Hills and the Nilgiris.
• India is the only country in the world where the entire coffee cultivation is grown under shade, hand-picked and sun dried.

Challenges faced by coffee industry

• Rising cost of production: 
  • The cost of coffee production has been rising 10%-15% annually as wage and input costs were on a constant rise. 
  • Over the last few decades the loss of forest cover has resulted in environmental degradation and costs of inputs such as fertiliser, labour wages, pesticides and fuel has drastically increased.
• Diseases: 
  • Plant loss due to white-stem borer disease, the yield has also come down significantly.
• Climate change:
  • Excessive rainfall played spoilsport for coffee plantations across the country. Because of early blossom showers in February, the crop was ready for harvest in October itself, instead of November. 
• Shortage of skilled labour:
  • Coffee cultivation requires plenty of cheap and skilled labour for various operations including sowing, transplanting, and pruning, plucking, drying, grading and packing of coffee.
  • But in India there is an acute shortage of skilled plantation labour.
• Stagnation in bulk coffee prices:
  • There is also stagnation in bulk coffee prices which has pushed the small growers who constitute 98% of coffee production to other avenues like coffee resorts, intercropping with pepper, etc.

Source: TH