Things could turn out to be bitter for the chocolate industry this year. Despite doubling of the area under cocoa and an almost doubling of production in recent years, around 50 per cent of the domestic industry's requirements have still to be imported. The spiralling cocoa price in the global market could leave the Indian chocolate industry in troubled waters.
Industry sources pointed out that lured by the highly remunerative prices, large number of farmers are bringing more area under the crop. “There has been large scale shift to cocoa cultivation by the farmers of the fertile Eluru belt of the West Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh, where productivity is very good,” Mr A.S. Bhat, Executive Director of the Central Arecanut and Cocoa and Processing Cooperative said. Similarly, the high domestic and international prices have resulted in large scale conversions to cocoa by the farmers of the Coimbatore belt. These major shifts are poised to change the gross dependence on imports by the Indian chocolate industry.
In a matter of just seven years the area under cocoa in India has more than doubled from 16,130 hectares in 2001-02 to 34,049 hectares in 2008-09. Despite the advent of large areas; and new and productive plants coming under harvest, the total production has not increased correspondingly – up at 11,820 tonnes over 6,780 tonnes in 2001-02. This is mainly because Indian cocoa cultivation was first confined to fertile and water-rich lands with high productivity. Growth in area was more restricted to marginal and more arid lands. Consequently, productivity was more or less stagnant, slightly over 500 kg a hectare.
The poor South-West monsoons and drought-like situations that prevailed reduced the pod size and bean size of the June-July crop, sources in the industry said. Neither the quality nor the size of the crop was expected to be of international standards. The heavy rains of the second monsoons resulted in much of the flower and the pods falling off, and we are expecting a lower second crop this year, they said.
Mr Venkatesh Hubbali, Director at the Directorate of Cashew and Cocoa Development said that given the more remunerative prices, more and more farmers are shifting their lands even from rubber and coconut to cocoa. The Directorate was encouraged by the positive shift by the farmers of Kerala and Karnataka to cocoa. And these two states account for the highest productivity in cocoa in the country at 685 and 600 kg a hectare.
The Government directed efforts to encourage the cultivation has also yielded good results from States such as Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Mr Hubbali said. These two States accounted for the maximum growth in area under cocoa during the last seven years. While Tamil Nadu accounted for close to 500 a cent growth in area, Andhra Pradesh accounted for over 400 per cent growth. The earlier criticism was that only marginal lands were being brought under cocoa by the farmers of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. But with the ruling lucrative prices even good irrigated lands are being brought under cocoa.
This has encouraged higher productivity from states like Andhra Pradesh. Productivity per hectare has moved up from 460 kg to 565 kg in Andhra Pradesh. While it has fallen from 500 kg to 350 kg in the case of Tamil Nadu, sources in the industry were optimistic that the advent of better cropland under cocoa will increase the State's productivity in the near future. While the Indian chocolate industry may not see very good days this year, there are sweeter years ahead, sources in the industry said.
Source : Business Line