Coffee Harvest Begins, But GCC And MAX Delay Price Fixation
Visakhapatnam: Girijana Cooperative Corporation and Visakhapatnam Agency Tribal Coffee Producers Mutual Aid Society Ltd are yet to announce coffee procurement prices for this season and have abandoned the tribal.
Farmers are in uncertainty.
These two public sector entities, operated by the Integrated Tribal Development Agency, are responsible for marketing nearly half of the coffee produced in the tribal area.
The delay in announcing supply prices helped private traders and farmer-producer organizations (FPOs) start purchasing coffee before them.
Traditionally, GCC and MAX announce their support prices in October and start buying in the first week of November. However, this year, the top committee comprising GCC director general, ITDA project officer and central coffee board officials did not meet, resulting in a delay in the price announcement.
As a result, farmers sell their products to private buyers without knowing the prices they can get from public institutions.
In the agency, 2.45 lakh tribal farmers grow coffee on 2.58 lakh acres and produce around 15,000 metric tonnes of clean coffee annually. Last year, GCC offered a maximum price of ₹400 per kg for parchment coffee, ₹250 per kg for cherries and ₹330 per kg for organic cherries.
These rates have reached record levels; Farmers are eagerly waiting to see whether this year’s prices will reach these figures.
Coffee prices are determined by analyzing the trends of the last two years and evaluating the current demand in the national and international market. Although the harvest season started earlier than usual, the delay in meeting the summit committee disrupted this process.
Above-normal rainfall in April and May, followed by persistent showers in July, August and September, resulted in a healthy crop. While harvesting, which usually starts in late November, has begun this year, farmers in Chintapalli and GK Veedhi mandals are already picking ripe cherries.
Some process cherries into parchment coffee, while others sell them directly to merchants.
Cyclone warnings and concerns about the Coffee Berry Borer pest have led Central Coffee Board officials to urge farmers to step up cherry picking. Once the first batch of cherries fell into private hands, the lack of public sector pricing became a problem requiring urgent attention.
Gaduthuri Ram Gopal, president of the AP wing of the Adivasi Federation of India, urged GCC and MAX to start purchasing and ensure fair prices for tribal cultivators.
