The Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Co-operative Limited (Campco) has entered into an agreement with a party in Pakistan for the export of 2000 tonnes of white supary worth Rs 16 crore to Pakistan, according to B Nagaraja Shetty, the president of Campco.
This followed deliberations with a delegation from Pakistan on the export of arecanut at New Delhi.
Campco plans to export 500 tonnes of arecanut next month subject to receipt of confirmed letter of credit from the Pakistan side.
Campco earned a profit of Rs 3.5 crore last financial year. During this fiscal year, it has set a target to procure 5000 tonnes of arecanut and 9000 tonnes of cocoa wet beans.
During the last fiscal year it procured about 45,000 tonnes of arecanut worth Rs 280 crore and sold 43,000 tonnes valued at Rs 283 crore.
Campco also procured about 6000 tonnes of cocoa wet beans valued at Rs 15 crore.
During the last fiscal, it produced 1340 tonnes of semi-finished chocolate items and 853 tonnes of finsihed items of chocolate at its chocolate factory at Puttur. It sold 1361 tonnes of semi-finished products worth Rs 19 crore and 858 tonnes of finished chocolate worth Rs 12 crore.
In addition to this, it undertook processing work on behalf of Amul, Nestle and Cadbury during the year.
The co-operative opened its 13th sales depot at Sholapur in Maharashtra on July 12 so as to make available its brand supary in that region. It is also planning to open sales depots at various upcountry consuming markets so as to have direct access to the consumers.
Under the market intervention scheme by the Karnataka government, as the nodal agency it procured 30,976 quintals of arecanut at Rs 60 per kg from the growers of Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Coorg, North Kanara and Shimoga districts of Karnataka. So far it has sold 90 per cent of the arecanut procured under the Scheme.
In Kerala too, Campco procured 80,250 quintals so far under a subsidy scheme announced by the state government. The scheme 13,000 arecanut growers in Kerala.
Campco has taken a decision to supply 50,000 cocoa plants to its grower-members at a subsidy price of Rs 2 per plant with an assurance to buy back arrangement of cocoa beans.
