Andhra Pradesh farmers unite to break coconut mafia'

Rajahmundry: Coconuts grown in Konaseema region continue to remain popular in many foreign countries like Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka but the farmers are being exploited by traders.

To overcome this issue, authorities are setting up a Farmer-Producer Organisation (FPO) with as many as 1,000 coconut farmers especially from Ambajipeta mandal in Konaseema region.

The organisation will be registered under Companies Act within 20 days. Farmers having managerial expertise will be selected and one of them will be made chief executive officer while a 10-member board of directors will be constituted. The FPO will prepare a business plan to develop infrastructure to process and market coconuts for domestic and international market.

As it gets registered under the Companies Act, it can raise loan from various sources including from state government, Centre, Nabard, cooperative societies and also from private industrialists to expand the develop the market further.
The quality of Konaseema region coconuts, especially the tender ones attract people for the water.

Farmers in the region are exporting coconuts and tender coconuts to several northern states like New Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha. With several temples in these states, the demand for coconuts is high.

Tender coconuts are also in huge demand in these states especially during the summer season. Horticulture authorities say that farmers in the region are being exploited by traders who buy the coconuts relatively at cheap cost and then export them to northern states to make good money.

Many farmers are of the view that since sufficient quantity of quality coconuts is available at a single point, domestic and international buyers approach them and they sell the product directly to them avoiding any role of middlemen and get the profit for themselves.

Horticulture assistant director (Amalapuram) Ch. Srinivasulu said, “Though the local farmers are producing huge quantum of good quality coconuts, lack of expertise to find potential market for their produce results in their exploitation. We are grouping them to float an FPO and will train them in capacity building to handle the business of any volume on their own to get profit for themselves.”