The United Planters’ Association of Southern India (UPASI) has voiced concern over low R&D expenditure to the plantation sector which is a key challenge facing the research and innovation ecosystem in India.
In absolute terms, though the R&D expenditure had increased, its size as a percentage of GDP remained at around 0.7 per cent. This is very low compared to 2.7 per cent of the OECD countries average in 2021. For instance, Israel spends around 4.93% per cent of the GDP on R&D, followed by South Korea (4.64 per cent), Taiwan (3.8 per cent), USA (3.5 per cent), Sweden (3.4 per cent), Japan (3.26 per cent), Germany(3.09 per cent).
Enhanced research funding to institutes like UPASI-TRF is the need of the hour, Upasi President C.Shreedharan said.
Attending the pre-budget consultation meeting of Agricultural Sector, he requested the Union Finance Minister that considerable reduction in allocation of funds to the Commodity Boards in the Union Budgets has affected the plantation sector adversely as the Boards were not in a position to implement developmental schemes, besides disbursement of dues to the growers under various schemes.
Thrust for replanting
“We request the Government to consider higher allocation to the plantation sector in the Union Budget 2024-25”, he said.
With regard to replantation/rejuvenation schemes, Upasi president said it should be given thrust in the existing areas instead of area expansion. So that in the short term, growers should be able to replant which will help planting better climate-change, pest resistant clones. There is also a need to promote inter/multi cropping in tea plantation, which help growers in getting better overall income when the tea prices are bad.
Building a strong brand identity for plantation commodities is of utmost importance to continue with its more than a century old legacy. Efforts should be made to promote single origin plantation products tagging the uniqueness of the region. There is a need for increased engagement between Indian Government and foreign counterparts for smoothing trade pathways and boosting market access. Integrating trade concerns in Government level dialogues with key export destinations, Shreedharan added.
Generic promotion
The UPASI president also highlighted focusing on promoting tea and coffee among the youth, generic promotion needs to kick-start to provide a more vibrant image for these commodities. The campaign should be able to provide a stimulus to augment domestic consumption and export volumes with actionable initiatives and deliverables that are continuous and long-term.
He pointed out that the generic promotion campaign assumes significance considering the high production volume attained by the industry vis-a-vis low growth in domestic consumption in the case of coffee and declining exports in the case of tea.
He also urged the need to set up an Atal Incubation Centre (AIC) for tea and spices replicating the success of such centre for coffee. AIC for coffee which was set up under the Atal Innovation Mission, brought about much needed innovation in the fields of vending machines (Make-in-India), blockchain technology for traceability, Artificial Intelligence etc.