D Vinod Sivappa and T Jayaram has been elected as the new president and vice president respectively of United Planters Association of Southern India (Upasi) for the year 2016-17 at the annual general meeting held on Saturday.
Vinod Sivappa’s family has been in the coffee growing business for more than 160 years and his father D Sivappa was the President of UPASI during the year 1970-71. While Jayaram is an agricultural graduate and runs a family business of cultivation and manufacturing of tea with an experience of 37 years.
He is the third generation of the family in tea plantations.