Wayanad: Soaring prices of coffee barely cheer up the farmers in Wayanad, Coorg and Nilgiri regions. Reason - an extremely harsh summer means a lean harvest season ahead.
The absence of summer showers has left the plants wilting. For coffee plants, summer rains (20 -40 millimetres) are essential in February for blooming and then after two to three weeks, 40-70 mm rainfall is needed when the berries ripen. The majority of the regions where coffee is grown did not receive summer showers. Only a handful of growers were able to install irrigation facilities on the plantation.

A bleak harvest is cited as one reason for the steady uptick in prices as major companies are on a buying spree. Though the farm gate price of Robusta coffee, which constitutes 70 per cent of Kerala’s annual production (70000 tons in 2022-2023), registered an all-time high (Rs 224 and above per kg on April 29, 2024), the farmers are not the least enthused.

According to George Daniel, Deputy Director, Regional Coffee Research Station, Chundel, Kalpetta, lack of summer rains coupled with an increase in atmospheric temperature would hit the coffee production in the region next year.

“It is quite unusual in the region and is an after-effect of the ‘El Nino’ phenomenon. In many parts slight summer showers were received and blossoming had begun however the rainfall wasn't persistent,” said George Daniel. Only those farmers with sufficient irrigation facilities could manage the extreme situation since almost all water sources had dried up,” he pointed out.
Experts also pointed out that the gravity of the scenario could be assessed only by June end, once the berries are set for ripening. The district is expecting a slump in production.

“We did not receive even a single spell of shower in the Meppadi coffee belt,” said Rajan Glenora, a coffee planter at Vaduvanchal near Meppadi. “As the water storage in our ponds has dried up we have no other choice but to wait for rainfall,” he said.
Going by the data of the Regional Agriculture Research Station (RARS), Ambalavayal, under the Kerala Agriculture University, this year (2024) in the first three months (January to March), the total rainfall received was only 29.3 mm whereas, in the last three years (2023,2022, 2021), the rainfall during the corresponding period was 115.5 mm, 149.5 mm and 139.7 mm, respectively.