To deal with the acute shortage of coir fibre, the State Government will forge a tie-up between farmers’ societies of the Coconut Development Board and coir societies under the Coir Department for husk procurement and processing.

According to Rani George, Coir Secretary, the coir industry was facing acute shortage of this raw material in spite of introducing various schemes such as the Husk Collection Scheme. The industry had to depend largely on Tamil Nadu for coir fibre, she said while speaking at a seminar on ‘Challenges and Opportunities in Kerala’s Natural Fibre Production’ held at Coir Kerala 2014

“The scheme failed to take off due to certain practical difficulties. So now we have decided to form tie-ups between farmers’ societies and coir societies to ensure that husk is collected and processed to extract fibre from it,” she said.

A meeting will soon be held to discuss the modalities for establishing the tie-ups. The Government is considering providing portable fibre extracting machines to the farm societies at subsidised rates, she said.

KR Anil, Director, National Coir Research Management Institute, said though the State produced 600 crore coconuts annually, the annual production of retted fibre was only 30,000 tonnes.

Nearly 70 per cent of the coir supplied to the industry is from Tamil Nadu where husk procurement and processing is conducted in an organised manner. Compared to Kerala where coconut farming is more of a household activity, in Tamil Nadu, there are coconut plantations.

There is need to have a more organised husk procurement scheme to tide over the crisis and reduce the State’s dependence on Tamil Nadu for raw material, he said.

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