The Rubber Board in its latest report has stated that natural rubber output increased by 14,000 tonne to 60,000 tonne in July 2019, as compared to 46,000 tonne in July 2018, mainly due to timely rain-guarding. It said confronted with a drastic reduction in production during the last few years, Companies procured rain-guard materials like polythene sheets and adhesive in bulk and distributed among small growers. As a result, nearly 1 lakh hactare of plantations were rain-guarded, more than the previous year. This is what was reflected in the increased production in July.
The Board is also popularising techniques like low frequency tapping (including once-a -week tapping) and controlled upward tapping to further improve production and bringing down the cost. The Board anticipates an annual production of 7.5 lakh tonne natural rubber for FY20. Fall in production last year was mainly attributed to high percentage of untapped area, low adoption level of modern techniques like rain-guarding and unscientific tapping methods.
The present level of low price has also contributed to this. For addressing this issue of unharvested plantations, the Rubber Board has recently introduced a programme, by which Board in association with its own companies and Rubber Producers’ Societies would adopt such untapped holdings of small holding farmers and arrange for the maintenance, tapping, processing and marketing of produce. Societies and companies have so far adopted 1,600 hactare plantations during the last few months. This arrangement has trimmed cost of production and bettered the quantity and quality of the rubber produced.