The Kerala Government will bring together farmers’ societies set up by the Coconut Development Board and coir societies formed by the Coir Board to procure husk and process it. This is part of its plan to tackle shortage of coir fibre. According to Rani George, Coir Secretary, the coir industry is facing shortage of raw material despite introducing various schemes such as Husk Collection Scheme. The industry has to depend largely on Tamil Nadu for coir fibre, she said speaking at a seminar on “Challenges and Opportunities in Kerala’s Natural Fibre Production” held at Coir Kerala 2014.

“The scheme, due to certain practical difficulties, failed to take off as we expected. So now, we have decided to form tie-ups between farmers’ societies and coir societies to ensure that the husks are collected and processed to extract fibre from it. A meeting will soon be held to discuss the modalities for establishing the tie-ups. The Government is seriously contemplating providing portable fibre extracting machines to the farm societies at subsidised rates,” she said.

KR Anil, Director, National Coir Research Management Institute, said that though the State was producing 600 crore coconuts annually, the annual production of retted fibre was 30,000 tonnes.

Nearly 70 per cent of the coir is supplied to the industry from Tamil Nadu where husk procurement and processing is done in an organised manner. Compared to Kerala where coconut farming is more of a household activity, in Tamil Nadu, there are plantations.

There is a need to have a more organised scheme for husk procurement to tide over the crisis and reduce the State’s dependability on Tamil Nadu for raw material, he said.

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