DELHI: Coffee growers from Karnataka and Kerala will join the total village shutdown call (Grameen Bandh) made by farmers' bodies across the country on February 16 to highlight their economic plight, demanding a declaration of fair remunerative price (FRP) for coffee and initiate concrete steps for cooperative procurement with immediate effect to give a shield to small growers from market fluctuations.
Earlier, the Farmers’ collective, Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) appealed to farmers to close the shops, mandis, stopping entire village activities and joining the massive local demonstration to create pressure on the Union government to accept its long-awaited demand for guaranteed procurement of all crops at minimum support price (MSP).
SKM has accused the Bhartiya Janata Party-led Union government of backtracking its promise.
Coffee farmers’ leaders expressed the fear that the Union government's proposal to amend the law would destroy the livelihood of small farmers and other people working in the sector.
Coffee Farmers Federation of India (CFFI) has accused the Centre of helping big business houses to dominate the Coffee economy at the cost of small growers. It claimed that big businesses like Tata, Reliance and other venture capitalists are investing on a large scale as they make huge margins.
“The pro-Big Business position of the Modi regime is very clear in its drive to pass the pro-corporate Coffee (Promotion and Development) Bill, 2022,” said P Krishna Prasad, General Secretary of Coffee Farmers Federation of India.
“In the name of “modernisation”, the Union government is making all commodity boards including the Coffee Board of India irrelevant from the perspective of the farmers and is converting the existing structure to suit the mantra of ‘ease of doing business," he added.
“Huge profits-making trend was very visible in 2023 and is creating a conducive atmosphere for speculative manoeuvring that would harm the class interests of primary producers” stated CFFI.
However, in the last few years, the price of coffee has improved which gives succour to growers.
“But in the larger context of extreme corporate exploitation and increasing production cost, this is not giving much succour to the peasantry,” said P K Abdul Latheef, CFFI President.