South India is known for its coffee growing belts and outstanding coffee beans but the indiscriminate use of pesticides and fertilizers has led the soil to develop fatigue. The farmers are also not getting the results they seek, said the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman, on Friday.
Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman was speaking at the launch of the Coffee Board of India, ‘Soil Health Cards’ for the registered coffee growers in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
“With the over exploitation of land, the soil started rebelling. Farmers did not know what to do,” said Ms. Sitharaman.
In the last six months, under the Coffee Board of India, the Central Coffee Research Institute collected soil samples from the coffee growing belts of the three States. Soil health cards were prepared for each grower giving the micro nutrient quality of their land, based on the data.
The first step in addressing the damage is the Soil Health Card System. It shows the nutrient status of the soil in a particular area. Apart from that it also shows fertility and presence of micro nutrients like calcium, zinc, magnesium, potassium, organic carbon, phosphorous, etc.
The Coffee Board released a status board on Friday which showed the acidity of soil was a growing concern.
Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Kerala, (IIITM-K,) developed an online database which is available in Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada and English. “The information obtained on the soil quality of each grower was developed into an online database with individualized recommendations for each grower,” said Ajith Kumar R., assistant professor, IIITM-K.
Ms. Sitharaman called the growers from the traditional coffee growing belts to the market and created a brand for their produce. “If Araku coffee can be sold as premium coffee in outlets in Paris, why can’t the same be done for Kodagu coffee or Wayanad coffee?” she asked.
Compared to the plantations in the traditional coffee belts of Kerala and Karnataka, the growers from the Araku Valley, in Visakhapatnam Andhra Pradesh, are recent entrants into coffee production.
