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Steps to boost coconut production

— PHOTO: H. VIBHU

FILLIP: A farmer at a coconut procurement centre.

KOCHI: The productivity in the traditional States, particularly in States like Kerala and Karnataka, is lower than the national average, according to a top official of Coconut Development Board. In order to make the domestic coconut industry globally competitive, it is necessary to enhance the current productivity level of coconut to a considerable level, he said.

There are about 5 million coconut holdings in the country and 70 per cent of them are in Kerala. The average size of coconut plantation on the west coast of India is below two acres. Organised large-scale plantations are completely absent in India. The increasing behaviour of fragmentation of coconut holdings in the country has made them unviable to adopt scientific management. Most of the coconut holdings in the country are practising subsistence farming only and is maintained under rain-fed management.

The continued coconut growing in the same land without recycling the residual bio-mass has depleted the soil biodynamic properties and reduced the input use efficiency.

However, appropriate production technologies have been developed to convert such small and uneconomic holdings into economically viable units through integrated cropping system managements.

It is estimated that nearly 25 per cent of the coconut plantations are more than 55-60 years old and hence an area of about 6.2 lakh hectares in traditional coconut growing States is old and senile. Nearly 123.380 lakh palms in the area are estimated to be yielding less than 10 nuts per palm an year.

It has been estimated that about 37.19 lakh palms in Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Ernakulam and Kottayam districts of Kerala are yielding less than 10 nuts per palm on account of root wilt disease and hence need total removal and replanting. In addition, about 21 lakh plants planted in these districts, affected by the disease, also require removal. Coconut Development Board has chalked out a mega project for replanting and rejuvenation of coconut groves in the traditional States.

Financial assistance is provided for cutting and removal of old, senile and disease-affected plants. The scheme is to be implemented in the Eleventh Five Year Plan, according to the official.

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