The price of old stocks of white arecanut is on an upward swing. The commodity has crossed Rs 240 a kg in some of the APMCs (agricultural produce marketing committees) in the last few days. The old stocks of white arecanut crossed Rs 200 a kg mark in September 2011.
Mr Ramesh Kaintaje, a farmer from the Bantwal taluk of Dakshina Kannada district, told Business Line that the bull rally began in mid-March 2011. However, there were two to three corrections in between.
He said that some private traders at Vittal in the Bantwal taluk of Dakshina Kannada district offered Rs 247 a kg on Wednesday. The decline in the yield in March 2011 due to fruit rot disease launched the rally.
When the rally started then, no grower was hopeful that it will last for almost a year. He quoted a similar experience of growers in 1999 when the price of old stocks crossed Rs 150 a kg mark and crashed to Rs 60 a kg in April 2000.
To avoid missing selling opportunities like last time, most growers started regularly releasing the old stocks to the market at every peak. “From Rs 180 a kg onwards growers started regularly releasing the commodity to the market at Rs 185, Rs 202 and Rs 222 a kg levels,” Mr Kaintaje said.
Now the growers could be holding around 10-15 per cent of old stocks. Earlier growers used to have at least 25-30 per cent of old stocks with them at this point of time, he said.
Agreeing that there is not much availability of old stocks, Mr M. Srinivas Achar, President of All-India Areca Growers’ Association, said that this may help improve the price for new stocks. The new stocks are trading in the range of Rs 170 a kg. This may improve a bit, and the gap between old and new stocks may narrow down, he added.
The price of old stocks of white arecanut, which was at Rs 239.50 a kg on July 13, stood at Rs 242 a kg on Wednesday at the Mangalore APMC market. The price at Puttur APMC remained at Rs 240 a kg for the past three sessions till July 18.