Coffee cultivation has become a steady source of income for Girijans in the agency (tribal) area of Visakhapatnam district in the eastern ghats for the past few years, as farmers have taken up organic cultivation of coffee with the help of NGOs such as Naandi Foundation.
The Government turned its focus on coffee and took the initiative to encourage tribals to turn coffee cultivators. The Government provided poor tribal farmers with one acre size holdings of semi-waste land that was converted to cultivate coffee.
The tribals did not gain much. They were led into a debt trap by traders who would advance amounts to tribal farmers before the crop season started with the understanding that the crop would be sold to them. Not only would the traders decide on the price of the crop but also pay at their convenience.
The tribal farmers formed the Small and Marginal Tribal Farmers Mutually Aided Cooperative Society with the support of Naandi Foundation and AASSAV, a voluntary organisation set up and run by tribals, Chief Sustainability Officer of Naandi Foundation David Hogg said. The tribal collective decided to launch organic coffee cultivation.
The tribal collective runs a nursery which provides the coffee seedlings to farmers, it helps in cultivation with timely advice, supplies neem cake and other organic fertilisers. Employees of the collective weigh and collect the berries from the doorstep of the tribal farmer. This is then sent to its own coffee pulper for processing, society president Garam Kumbo said. Today the packed coffee powder is sold in big cities and abroad. “It is available in Paris too,” Hogg said.
The collective has also taken up agro-forestry in the degraded lands. This not helps green the hills but also in carbon sequestration and as a result earn carbon credits.
This has ensured that the tribal farmer today earns on an average Rs 6,250 per acre. The collective is making efforts to improve productivity and take the average income per acre to Rs 31,250, the president of the tribal collective said.
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