KOZHIKODE: Coconut price in the state is at an all-time high. Yet the coconut farmers are a dejected lot. The reason is as old as the hills -- acute shortage of labourers to pluck coconuts and high labour cost.According to the Agricultural Market Intelligence Centre (AMIC) of the Kerala Agricultural University, a price range of Rs 21.00-24.00 per kg may prevail for partially dehusked nuts for the next three months. This is due to the decline in production in all major coconut producing countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka due to variations in climate. Consequently, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and the Middle East countries have started importing nuts increasingly from India.Meanwhile, the desperate coconut farmers are running from pillar to post to find labourers for plucking coconuts. “After a long gap, coconut is getting a good price in the market. Yet, it’s very difficult to get persons for plucking the nuts. And they are demanding Rs 25 to Rs 30 for plucking nuts from a single tree. Two or three people, who are employed to collect the nuts from the ground, should be paid separately. The government has lost the control over the labour charges in the state. The government should do something urgently to sort out the issue so that farmers can exploit the opportunity,” says Edat Mathew, the coconut farmer based in Payyavur in Kannur.The unavailability of labourers has affected the crop management and the crop seasons are slowly disappearing in the state. “Earlier, nuts were plucked once in every 50 days or upto eight times in a year. Now, we have to wait upto 80 days due to shortage of labourers. Due to the delay, ripened nuts fall and majority of these are stolen. Now, some labourers help in plucking the nut but only on personal relationship and that too after much cajoling. If things go like this, coconut farming in the state will meet the same fate of paddy cultivation, which declined due to lack of labourers to reap the harvest,” said K Ponnappan Pillai, a coconut farmer in Thiruvananthapuram.According to the AMIC report, the area of coconut farming has been declining drastically in the state since 2001. “It’s now or never. The state government should immediately intervene to solve the issue. Instead of spending huge amounts for inventing coconut plucking machines, the government has to recruit skilled labourers at the panchayat level. This will help farmers to reap the harvest in time. Other wise farmers will have no other option but to stop farming,” says Varghese George, national award winning coconut farmer of Ernakulam.
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