The Hindu Business Line : More area under coffee in AP than Tamil Nadu

Visakhapatnam, Sept 12 Andhra Pradesh has made impressive strides in coffee cultivation in recent years and has overtaken Tamil Nadu in area of cultivation, even though there is a long road ahead in productivity, according to Mr K. Annapurnaiah, the Joint Director (extension), Coffee Board.

In an interview here on Friday, he said currently, coffee was being grown in the agency (tribal) tracts of Visakhapatnam district and East Godavari in the Eastern Ghats. “In this non-traditional area, coffee plantations have been raised on 37,773 hectares in 11 mandals in Visakhapatnam district and parts of East Godavari district and coffee is really bringing cheer into the lives of Girijans. They are earning Rs 10,000 an acre a year,” he said. Coffee was being raised on 30,000 hectares of land in Tamil Nadu. One of the main objectives of encouraging coffee cultivation in the area, he said, was to wean the tribals away from “podu” (shifting) cultivation so destructive to the environment and engage them in settled cultivation. “Coffee is the ideal crop for the purpose and of late we are encouraging them to take up pepper along with coffee to augment their income,” he explained.

Mr Annapurnaiah said the productivity, however, was not so good, as the crop was new to tribals and there was a lot of improvement to be achieved. At present, only 175 kg of coffee was being harvested a hectare in the State against the national average of 900 kg a hectare. “We are making sustained efforts in co-ordination with the Integrated Tribal Development Agency, Paderu, to teach the tribal farmers the management practices to boost productivity,” he said.

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