The let-up in rains has helped the farmers in the state to resume tapping, but there seems to be no end to their woes on account of the continuing price slide of Natural Rubber (NR).
The price of the commodity, which touched `196 per kg in August 8, 2013, slipped to `156.50 on Wednesday -- a 35.59 per cent decline from the all time high price of `243 realised in 2011.
Farmers are blaming the crash on the increase in imports of NR and feel that the expected spurt in production due to the advent of the peak season, will worsen the situation.
The import of NR in October this year (33,486 MT), though significantly less than figure for September, was nearly double the quantity of import in October 2012 (18,466 MT).
The overall import of rubber in this fiscal has already touched 2,14,448 MT. India had imported a total of 2,17,364 MT of NR in 2012-13. The farmers are demanding a total ban on rubber import, for the time being, to stabilise the price. “Taking into account the vulnerable situation, the import of any kind of rubber should be suspended at least for six months.
“There is no other remedy to bridle the plummeting price of rubber,” said Siby J Monippally, president of the Indian Rubber Growers Association.
Sources in the Rubber Board expressed hope that prices may not go further down as the production dipped 7.3 per cent in October alone, compared to the same period last year.
“The overall decrease in production so far is estimated at 12.2 per cent. This happened at a time when we were expecting a hike in production this year,” a Rubber Board official said.
There are reports that tyre companies are expected to resume active buying in November as their stocks have already run out.
However, the farmers are not ready to completely rely on this reports, because of rumours that companies have already imported their stocks at least for November. Some experts are of the opinion that the poor quality of Indian Rubber is the predominant reason for the increase in imports.