The nationwide lockdown, to check the spread of COVID-19, has hit the grass-roots level arecanut growers with trading in the country coming to a halt.
With both private sector traders and cooperative sector marketing societies stopping procurement, small and marginal farmers are in peril now.
Sources in Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Ltd. (CAMPCO), Mangaluru, Dakshina Kannada, and Totgars’ Coopeartive Sale Society Ltd. (TSS), Sirsi, Uttara Kannada, two among the prominent players in the arecanut market, told The Hindu that it will take at least three months for the market to recover after the lockdown ends.
North India is the prominent consumer market for arecanut. As trading has abruptly come to an end, the entire supply chain has been hit with no purchasers at the grass-roots level.
Even after the lockdown ends, the liquidity issues of traders in the consumer market will continue for another three months.
The money of traders in the consumer market has been held up at different stages of the market chain. It will ultimately come in the way of procuring the produce from the growers, sources said.
Unless the consumer market traders pay, the cooperative sector and private sector traders will not be able to procure the produce from farmers, they said.
Once the lockdown got over and if the farmers released their produce to the market at a time for want of money the market will collapse, the sources said. Hence farmers should exercise restraint, they said.
Concurring with this, Mahesh Puchhappady, general secretary, All-India Areca Growers’ Association, Puttur, Dakshina Kannada, said that farmers should not resort to panic selling.
The growers should release their produce slowly only to meet their immediate monetary requirements, he said adding that unlike foodgrain farmers, whose supply chain has not been hit, arecanut growers have been hit badly.
Stocks of white arecanut or ‘chali’ had closed at ₹263-₹305 a kg and red arecanut at around ₹394 a kg at the time of the lockdown.
Sources said that last year’s weather conditions, flood and ‘kole roga’ (fruit rot disease) have resulted in 28% short supply of white arecanut and about 30 % short supply of red variety of arecanut.
