A storm brews for India’s coffee growers after heavy rains

A THIRD OF INDIA’S COFFEE CROP HAS BEEN ESTIMATED TO BE LOST DUE TO RECENT FLOODS AND LANDSLIDES

BENGALURU: When it rained in July, coffee growers in Kodagu were pleased because their crop had been stricken by drought in the past few years, recalls Bottangada Muthanna Raju, who grows the beans in Hudikeri village, at the southernmost tip of the hill district in Karnataka.

“It kept pouring for months on end, though,” Raju said. “By the time the rains stopped our crops had taken a beating.” In the first few weeks of August, Kodagu received 1,675 mm of rainfall — more than twice the average for the entire month that is 821mm.

Because of the heavy downpour, Raju, who owns 65 acres of coffee plantations, is expecting to reap this year only 20% of his usual harvest of around 390 kg/acre. “The situation is so bad, we’re wondering whether to even harvest this year,” he said.

Rainfall in Kodagu for the southwest monsoon, which begins June 1 and ends September 30, is normally 2,345mm. Last year, it was 1,790mm. This year the rainfall has been 3,154mm, which is 35% more than usual, according to India Meteorological Department data.

In a statement released in September, the Coffee Board of India estimated a crop loss of about 82,000 tonnes because of the heavy rains and floods that pounded Karnataka and Kerala this monsoon.

Kerala received the heaviest rainfall in a century in August, which submerged half the state and left more than 400 people dead and thousands homeless.

The coffee crop in Karnataka, India’s biggest grower of the beans, and Kerala also took a bad hit.the estimated crop loss is about a third of India’s annual coffee output. The Board also stated that at least 1,500 hectares of coffee growing land has been affected by landslides. Small coffee growers are especially hard hit as coffee is a crop that takes more than a decade to mature, requires intensive cultivation and huge financial investment to maintain the plantations.

BAD YEAR

“In a good year we produce about 350 kilograms of coffee per acre, but this year I don’t think we’ll cross even 100 kilograms,” says KK Manukumar of Kalladevapura village in Chikmangalur.