Campco’s areca procurement price rises above pre-lockdown level

The Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative (Campco) Ltd has decided to increase the procurement price of white arecanut by ₹5/kg with effect from Wednesday. With this, the price of the new stocks of white arecanut has crossed the pre-lockdown level.

Suresh Bhandary, Managing Director of Campco, told BusinessLine that the procurement price of new stocks of white arecanut has been increased from ₹270/kg to ₹275 /kg from Wednesday. New stocks of white arecanut had closed at ₹267/kg in the pre-lockdown market. With this, the growers will be getting ₹7 a kg more than the pre-lockdown price.

He said the procurement price of old stocks of white arecanut has been increased from ₹295/kg to ₹300/kg from Wednesday. The price ruled at around ₹300/kg in the pre-lockdown market.

He said the total sealing of borders with neighbouring countries has put a complete brake on legal and illegal imports of arecanut. The imported stocks were meeting a significant part of the demand in the northern markets such as Uttar Pradesh.

Stating that these markets are completely dependent on domestic stocks now, he said, this factor is driving the demand for white arecanut in the arecanut-growing centres.

At a time when the arecanut-consuming market was shut down completely due to lockdown, the cooperative decided to venture into arecanut procurement on April 13 at a base price of ₹250/ kg for new stocks of white arecanut, and ₹275/kg for old stocks.

Bhandary said the decision was taken then to avoid panic selling of the commodity by farmers and to provide stability to the market.

On April 27, Campco further increased the price to ₹255/kg for new stocks and ₹280/kg for old stocks of white arecanut.

On May 4, it increased the procurement price to ₹270/kg for new stocks and ₹295/kg for old stocks of white arecanut.

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