The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Planters advised caution

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 24, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Planters advised caution

Staff Reporter

CHEERS!: Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh at a stall at the India International Coffee Festival 2007 in Bangalore on Friday. — Photo: K. Murali Kumar

BANGALORE: The International Coffee Organisation executive director Nestor Osorio on Friday advised coffee growers in India to be cautious in bringing more areas under coffee cultivation and not to be lured by the boom in the industry after facing four years of crisis.

Delivering a keynote address at the three-day India International Coffee Festival 2007 organised by the Coffee Board of India, here Dr. Osorio said the prices of coffee had increased along with the purchasing capacity of the consumers. Any expansion of the coffee cultivation might lead to fluctuations in the supply-demand ratio leading to devastations in the industry about which the growers had to be careful.

Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jairam Ramesh, who presided, said there was a proposal to rejuvenate 200 coffee plantations spread over 80,000 hectares in the country. About half of them were a century old and the rest 50 years old with lower quality and yields. For this purpose, he had been planning to launch a plantation rejuvenation fund and the proposal would be put before the Centre for its approval.

He said that a special purpose vehicle need an investment of Rs. 800 crore for which the Centre contribute Rs. 400 crore. The rest should come from the growers.

Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister C.M. Udasi inaugurated the programme on behalf of the Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and read out his speech. Coffee Board Chairman G.V.K. Rau welcomed the gathering.

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