SC order banning the sale of gutkha in plastic pouches triggers panic.
Trading of arecanut (beetelnut) has come to a standstill in the major markets of Karnataka, Kerala and parts of Assam, following a Supreme Court order banning the sale of gutkha in plastic sachets. Subsequently, the gutkha industry, which largely uses arecanut as the main ingredient, stopped purchasing arecanut in south India. The order came in effect on March 1.
As a result, the prices of arecanut dropped to a three-year low of Rs 10,000 a quintal as against Rs 18,000 a quintal in December and January, a drop of 44.5 per cent.
The current prices are not economical for growers as they cannot even recover their cost of production, AG Nagappa, director, Davanagere Arecanut Marketing Cooperative Society Ltd said.
At present, the cost of cultivation of arecanut is Rs 14,000 to Rs 15,000 a quintal, while farmers can recover only 50 per cent if they sell at the price fixed by the Karnataka government. Following the price crash, the state government has announced Rs 7,500 a quintal as the support price and released a Rs 25-crore market intervention assistance.
Meanwhile, the state government has sought an intervention of the Central government and requested for fixing minimum support price of Rs 16,643 a quintal for the red variety arecanut and Rs 10,810 a quintal for the white variety arecanut. However, the Central government is yet to take any steps in this regard, the chief minister BS Yeddyurappa said on the floor of the state Assembly last week.
“The prices have come down with just a ban on the use of plastic by gutkha manufacturers. In case, the court bans the manufacture of gutkha itself then there will be no takers for our produce and lakhs of farmers will lose their livelihood in southern states,” Nagappa said.
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Out of an estimated production of 600,000 metric tonnes in Karnataka, hardly 20 per cent is sold by farmers this year and a large quantity is still unsold, thereby, leaving farmers in distress throughout the state, said A S Bhat, managing director, Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Ltd (Campco), a Mangalore-based multi-state cooperative, which trades arecanut.
A large number of farmers staged protest rallies across Karnataka on Monday and are plan to protest in Delhi later this month. As a mark of protest against the apex court order, the gutkha manufacturers stopped purchasing arecanut from major markets in Karnataka like Sirsi, Shimoga and Mangalore and Kannur, Kozhikode, Thrissur, Kochi in Kerala, he said.
Bhat said Campco has filed an impleading petition in the Supreme Court seeking deferment of the earlier order to ban the sale of gutkha in plastic pouches. “There is a need to defer the implementation by one more year and in the interim find out an alternative method of packing gutkha”, he said.
Meanhwile, Yeddyurappa has said the state government is also planning to hire a lawyer in the Supreme Court to file a review petition.
Karnataka is the leading producer of arecanut in the country and produces 600,000 metric tonnes annually from 572,000 acres. As many as three million families are dependent on arecanut for livelihood in the districts of Uttara Kannada, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Kodagu, Shimoga, Tumkur, Davanagere, Chitradurga and Chikmagalur. Kerala, Assam, Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar islands are other producers of arecanut in the country.