The Hindu : Business : Call to step up rubber cultivation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 18, 2007
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Call to step up rubber cultivation

Staff Reporter

Rs. 300 crore for replanting measures

Kerala achieves highest productivity in the world
Rubber Board identifies land in Tripura and Assam

KOTTAYAM: India will turn a net importer of natural rubber within 10 years, unless the nation makes an aggressive plantation and re-plantation effort with high-yielding clones, Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh has said.

Inaugurating the golden-jubilee celebrations of the Rubber Plantation Extension Programme of the Rubber Board here on Monday, Mr. Ramesh said rubber consumption in the country was projected to touch 1.5-million tonnes by 2017, overtaking those of Japan and the U.S. and reaching the number-two position behind China’s.

“Unless production catches up with consumption needs, we will have to resort to imports,” he said. That would not be in the interest of the nation.

He said the complaint of consuming industries, especially tyre manufacturers, that buoyancy in the rubber market had forced them to pay a heavy price for the raw material was true, and cautioned growers and dealers against hoarding.

“But we have told them we are here to protect the interests of the rubber grower,” he said hinting at the continuation of the current policies in the near future.

The Minister stressed the need for the Board to shed its Kerala- centric operations and take up a massive plantation effort in other areas. The Board had identified 65,000 hectares of land in Tripura and Assam and 5,000 hectares each in Orissa and Karnataka for planting during the 11th Plan period.

In addition, 34,000 hectares would have to be brought under re-plantation in traditional areas during the period, he said.

“Kerala has achieved the highest productivity in the world at 1,890 kg per hectare. But it remains an irony that productivity in large tracts of rubber plantations in Kerala is still confined to the one-tonne mark,” he said. The grower should understand that the best time to plan for the future is not when the prices had hit rock bottom but when the going was good.

He said the government had earmarked Rs. 300 crore for replanting efforts in traditional areas. That would have a subsidy content of 20 per cent. “But tea is getting a subsidy of 25 per cent and we are trying for the same subsidy share in rubber sector too,” Mr. Ramesh said. The Finance Ministry would have to approve it.

The Minister wanted the rubber-plantation sector to move out of the present monoculture regime and use new high-yielding clonal varieties, such as RRII 414 and 430. Currently, nearly 95 per cent of the area was covered by RRII 105, which was not advisable, he said. The challenge before the Rubber Research Institute of India (RRII) was to produce high-yielding clonal varieties, which would be able to withstand the inconsistencies in climatic conditions brought about by global warming.

The Minister said the way agriculture commodity futures markets functioned now was not in the interests of the farmers, and stressed the need to link their operations to physical delivery of the commodity.

The need of the hour was to make farmers participants in the futures market. He had asked the Rubber Board to take steps to empower the Rubber Production Societies, primary participants in the rubber futures market process.

Public Works Minister Mons Joseph; K. Suresh Kurup and P.J. Kurian, MPs; V.N. Vasavan, MLA; Rubber Board Chairman Sajan Peter and others spoke.

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