Comments
After a four-year commendable stint as Executive Director of the Rubber Board, KN Raghavan is stepping down on March 31 after taking up a lot of significant measures to extend natural rubber cultivation to more parts of the country beyond Kerala.
In a farewell interaction with businessline, Raghavan stressed the need to focus more on stretching rubber farming to other regions across the country, considering the shrinkage of cultivated area in traditional growing belt of Kerala.
Declining interest among traditional growers can be cited as a reason for this, which can be seen more among absentee landlords, who are not directly involved in natural rubber cultivation.
Currently, 5.5 lakh hectares are under natural rubber cultivation in Kerala and there could be a drop of around 8-10 per cent in the next 10-15 years, he said.
ATMA’s support
The Board, according to him, has taken up a project for supporting the development of new rubber plantations in North East (NE) with ₹1,000 crore funding from major tyre companies represented by the Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) by signing an MoU in March 2021.
The plan is to develop 2,00,000 hectares of rubber plantations in NE in five years. Planting was done on 27,232 hectares in 2021 and 2022. Arrangements have been completed for carrying out planting on 50,000 hectares in 2023.
Likewise, MoU was signed with Navsari Agricultural University, Gujarat to evaluate the feasibility of cultivating rubber in the South Gujarat region and with DY Patil Agriculture and Technical University, Talsande in Maharashtra to explore the feasibility in the Kolhapur region.
Another MoU is to be signed with Indira Gandhi Vishwavidyalaya Raipur for setting up rubber plantations on a trial basis in the Bastar region in Chhattisgarh. If successful, this can help to bring down the incidence of extremist activities in that region, Raghavan said.
Rubber Board has started a scheme for “adopting” plantations lying untapped. To date, 55,000 hectares of plantations have been adopted, and tapping resumed therein.
On production, he said the figure has gone from 6,51,000 tonnes in 2018-19 to 7,75,000 tonnes in 2021-22, and the figure is expected to reach 8,40,000 tonnes in 2022-23.
On the fluctuations in natural rubber prices hitting small farmers hard, Raghavan said the RPIS scheme implemented by the Kerala government is a good initiative as it helps to protect the interests of small growers by providing them with a safety net.
The Board has written to the governments in other rubber-growing States to consider implementing similar schemes.
The introduction of mRube, the electronic market platform for natural rubber is proposed to complement the existing trade system of NR with more market visibility and to strengthen the efficacy of the domestic supply chain of NR, Raghavan added.
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.