Coffee growers struggle to pay workers as harvest begins

The cash crunch triggered by demonetisation of high value notes of ₹500 and ₹1,000 and the subsequent limits imposed on bank withdrawals has put the coffee growers in a quandary, especially at the start of the harvesting season.

Plantation owners in recent years have been relying mainly on the migrant labour, who have been coming from as far as Odisha and Assam, to pick the coffee fruits and pay them mainly in cash.

The harvest of arabica beans has commenced in Karnataka, which accounts for 72 per cent of the coffee produced in the country, and is expected to peak over the next fortnight.

During the harvest time, the labour is paid for the quantum of the coffee picked every day and the wage outgo for the growers normally goes up by 4-5 folds during the period.

“Cash shortage has become a major issue for us. We have managed in the past 2-3 weeks, but as the peak harvest season kicks in we are finding it difficult,” said DM Purnesh, Managing Director of Classic Synergy, a large coffee grower in Sakleshpur, Hassan.

Purnesh said that he had arranged supplies of grocery to the labourers through the local grocers. Prevailing cold weather conditions in the growing regions, influenced by the depression in Bay of Bengal is aiding the coffee berry ripening process and is thereby seen exerting pressure on the growers to hasten the harvesting.

Further, the lack of adequate banking facilities in the coffee growing regions that are mainly located in the hilly, remote and interior parts of the State has also compounded the growers’ woes.

“Somehow we are adjusting. Ensuring cash payments to migrant workers, who don’t have any bank accounts is becoming a problem,” said N Bose Mandanna, a large grower in Suntikoppa, Kodagu.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka Planters’ Association, the apex body of the planters in the State, has urged the Finance Minister to extend the special permission, granted recently by Centre to States such as Assam, West Bengal and Kerala, to Karnataka also.

“We have learnt that that the State governments of Assam, West Bengal and recently Kerala have been given special permission by the Central government to ensure that the tea garden workers are paid their weekly wages on time.

The scheme requires the tea garden managements to issue a cheque of the amount required to disburse wages to the Deputy Commissioner of the district concerned. The DC is granted permission by the government to withdraw the required amount and hand it over to the tea garden managements. This has benefited nearly 15 lakh tea garden labourers in over 850 small and big tea gardens in Assam and West Bengal. The Government of Kerala too has passed a similar Order on November 17. Hence, we request you to kindly pass a similar order in Karnataka to help disburse the wages to the daily wage labourers in the plantation districts of Chikmagalur, Coorg, Hassan, Chamarajanagar, Dakshina Kannada, Uttara Kannada and Shivamogga districts,” MM Chengappa, Chairman, KPA, said in a memorandum to the Finance Minister.

According to the Coffee Board, output for the 2016-17 coffee year starting October, is expected to shrink by 8 per cent to 3.2 lakh tonnes from a record high of 3.48 lakh tonnes in the previous year.

Production of arabica is pegged at 1 lakh tonnes for the current year, while that of robusta is estimated at 2.20 lakh tonnes.