The ruinous floods in Kerala and Karnataka are likely to have a long-term negative impact on coffee growers and will cause one-fifth of the coffee production to be wiped out this year. Ruined plantations would take several years to return to life and a part of those that survived might die due to the rotting of their roots. One estimate places the losses in three districts of Karnataka alone at Rs 700 crore.
President of the Coffee Exporters Association of India, Ramesh Rajah said there will also be a huge financial bearing on the beleaguered farmers to arrange resources for recovery of the damaged trees and re-establish the dead coffee gardens. He added that according to the Coffee Board, about 1,000 hectares of coffee garden area have been flattened due to the landslides triggered by the heavy rains. Every big tree in (shed-grown) plantations that has fallen has damaged at least 10-20 coffee trees. He said there were fears that some of the coffee trees that survived the floods might ‘die slowly’ due to the root-rotting as they were submerged for a long time.
Before the monsoon, the total coffee output for this year was pegged at over 3.5 lakh tonnes. However, the estimates have been brought down to 2.8-3 lakh tonnes post the flash-floods-led disaster in both southern states. According to the Coffee Board of India, the total production of coffee in 2015-16 was 3.48 lakh tonnes while it was estimated to be 3.12 lakh tonnes in 2016-17. Karnataka accounts for 70-80% of the country's total coffee production while Kerala produces over 10% and Tamil Nadu about 5%. Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and the Northeastern region, which come under the non-traditional coffee producing areas, account for the rest.
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