Rubber production sees 15.4% drop

Natural rubber production during April - September period has dropped 15.4% as per the latest data of Rubber Board. The six month period production dropped to 281,000 tonnes as against 332,000 tonnes in the same period of last financial year. The serious drop in prices for the last two years, that forced farmers to abandon plantations, caused this dip. According to farmers there is no serious attention to the plantations for the last two years as the price for bench mark grade RSS-4 dropped to Rs 110/kg. The price peaked to a level of Rs 240, few years back.

Mathew Joseph, a Kottayam based grower told Business Standard that there is no increase in the area of rubber planting as the price realization is not at all attractive. A major chunk of farmers in the northern districts of Kerala had either shifted to other crops or abandoned the plantations, especially, small and medium farmers. Farmers are not giving serious attention to rubber for the last couple of years, he said.

 

Re-plantation has also stalled due to the adverse market condtions. In Kerala at least 25% of the trees are age old of which yield is very low. Adverse climatic condition also hit the production in this season. There was continuous fall in production in each month of the current financial year.

Although consumption has dropped 2% during April - September period, the volume of consumption was almost double that of the local production. Total consumption was 501,535 tonnes as against 511,565 tonnes in the same period of last FY.

This is possible just because of the huge arrival through import to the country. During April - September period total import was 213,184 tonnes. This was 236,640 tonnes in the same period of 2014-15, according to the data. There is a continuous fall in the import of natural rubber in the current financial year. During September, import was 32,933 tonnes as against 43,674 tonnes in September, 2014.

As per the provisional data of the Board India is having a total stock of 225,000 tonnes as against 200,000 tonnes at the end of September, 2014.