BENGALURU: To boost coffee economy, help farmers and consumers, the Board has decided to promote a new variety of brew. To ease farmers into adopting the new variety of Chandragiri coffee, the board has asked the state and central government to provide planters a soft loan with lower interest rates and moratoriums.
KG Jagadeesh, CEO and Secretary of the Coffee Board, told The New Indian Express, “This new variety of cuppa yields more, and has a good cupping quality. The beans are bold and has a lot of resistance to leaf pests. The taste and quality of this variety is also good, but its acceptability among farmers is only 10 per cent. Since getting a subsidy is difficult, the board has asked the government to offer them soft loan schemes. Farmer will not clear their standing crop and sow fresh saplings and wait for five years, without any returns. This issue needs to be addressed to have a better market.”
The Board is not just working on promoting Chandragiri in Karnataka and southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, but to other Indian states like Odisha. Jagadeesh said that the aim is to increase productivity, so that the exports and domestic sales also increase. The Board officials pointed out that in Karnataka and southern regions, the most grown variety is Cauvery and Arabica, but assessment of samples have shown that Chandragiri is better. According to the Board’s statistics, the yield has been good at 1,037 kg per hectare of Arabica and Robusta in Karnataka in the year 2020-21.