CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to instruct the ministry concerned to enhance the ceiling for procurement of copra from Tamil Nadu from 25% to 40% in the current season till September.
He also wanted to increase the procurement target for TN from 56,000 tonnes to 90,000 tonnes to stabilise the market price of copra and help coconut growers.
In a letter to Modi, Stalin said there have been innumerable requests from coconut growers in Tamil Nadu to increase the procurement target under the price support scheme (PSS) of the Union government. Under the scheme, commodities like red gram, green gram, black gram and copra are procured to ensure minimum support price to farmers and to stabilise the market price.
“Under PSS, a total of 47,513 tonnes of copra has been procured against the target of 56,000 tonnes from April to June 2023, and still three months of procurement season (July to September) are remaining. As there are still huge stocks of copra available with farmers and market prices continue to remain low, several representations are received from farmers to increase the quantity of procurement,” Stalin said.
Stating that in Tamil Nadu, the PSS procurement is done by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd, an organisation of the Government of India, Stalin said, “Tamil Nadu stands third in area and productivity and second in production of coconut at the national level with an area of 4.46 lakh hectare, production of 53,518 lakh nuts and productivity of 11,692 nuts per hectare.”
Though copra procurement under PSS was initiated in 2019 in Tamil Nadu, it was negligible in the initial years as market prices were well above MSP. However, the trend reversed in 2022 due to the increased production of coconut.
As a result, the market price of coconut declined from about Rs 2,500 per quintal to Rs 1,500 per quintal. Similarly, the market price of copra declined from nearly Rs 11,500 per quintal to Rs 8,100 per quintal. This led to a spike in procurement of copra under PSS in 2022 and the current year.