<div align="justify">The Coffee Board would soon urge the Centre to increase subsidy on drip-irrigation equipment to 80%, from 25% for small growers to harvest water for plantations, the newly appointed Chairman of Coffee Board M S Boje Gowda said.<br /><br />Talking to DH after assuming charge, here on Wednesday, he said the reconstituted board will soon meet in Bengaluru to finalise its recommendations to the government. “The 32-member Board will soon meet and finalise recommendations to the government. Our main is concern is that the plantations are suffering from lack of water. We need to address this issue urgently,” Boje Gowda said.<br /><br />Currently, horticulture and agriculture farmers are getting 80% subsidy on drip irrigation equipment and the government will be urged to extend the same to coffee planters, he said.<br />Gowda, 67, a veteran coffee grower from Chikkamagaluru district in Karnataka’s Malnad region, about 250 km from Bengaluru, is the first non-executive chairman of the Coffee Board under the Ministry of Commerce.<br /><br />As coffee plantations are rain-dependent, consecutive drought over the last three years has severely affected bean production in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, he said.<br /><br />“A steady decline in the annual rainfall in the three coffee-growing southern states over the last 10 years due to climate change and global warming has disrupted the plantation sector, with lower production in the absence of enough water bodies or tanks to store and harvest it,” Gowda said.<br /><br />Quoting met department data, Boje Gowda said that rainfall in the state’s coffee-growing areas across the Western Ghats declined 40% from 100-120 inches per year to 50-60 inches over the last year, resulting in lower production and less ground water. “My first priority is to get higher subsidy to small so that they can buy equipment to build tanks and ponds to store excess rain water during the monsoons and revive water bodies for steady supply of water to the plants,” Gowda said.<br /><br />As per the Board’s data, the post-monsoon crop declined 3,300 tonne to 316,700 tonne from post-blossom estimate of 320,000 tonne in 2016-17, with Arabica berry accounting for 96,200 tonne and Robusta for 2,20,500 tonne. Arabica production declined 3,800 tonne (3.8%) while Robusta increased 500 tonne. “My other priority is to increase production in quantity to over six-lakh tonnes per annum in the coffee plantation sector across the three states from around three-lakh tonnes,” Gowda added.</div>
<div align="justify">The Coffee Board would soon urge the Centre to increase subsidy on drip-irrigation equipment to 80%, from 25% for small growers to harvest water for plantations, the newly appointed Chairman of Coffee Board M S Boje Gowda said.<br /><br />Talking to DH after assuming charge, here on Wednesday, he said the reconstituted board will soon meet in Bengaluru to finalise its recommendations to the government. “The 32-member Board will soon meet and finalise recommendations to the government. Our main is concern is that the plantations are suffering from lack of water. We need to address this issue urgently,” Boje Gowda said.<br /><br />Currently, horticulture and agriculture farmers are getting 80% subsidy on drip irrigation equipment and the government will be urged to extend the same to coffee planters, he said.<br />Gowda, 67, a veteran coffee grower from Chikkamagaluru district in Karnataka’s Malnad region, about 250 km from Bengaluru, is the first non-executive chairman of the Coffee Board under the Ministry of Commerce.<br /><br />As coffee plantations are rain-dependent, consecutive drought over the last three years has severely affected bean production in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, he said.<br /><br />“A steady decline in the annual rainfall in the three coffee-growing southern states over the last 10 years due to climate change and global warming has disrupted the plantation sector, with lower production in the absence of enough water bodies or tanks to store and harvest it,” Gowda said.<br /><br />Quoting met department data, Boje Gowda said that rainfall in the state’s coffee-growing areas across the Western Ghats declined 40% from 100-120 inches per year to 50-60 inches over the last year, resulting in lower production and less ground water. “My first priority is to get higher subsidy to small so that they can buy equipment to build tanks and ponds to store excess rain water during the monsoons and revive water bodies for steady supply of water to the plants,” Gowda said.<br /><br />As per the Board’s data, the post-monsoon crop declined 3,300 tonne to 316,700 tonne from post-blossom estimate of 320,000 tonne in 2016-17, with Arabica berry accounting for 96,200 tonne and Robusta for 2,20,500 tonne. Arabica production declined 3,800 tonne (3.8%) while Robusta increased 500 tonne. “My other priority is to increase production in quantity to over six-lakh tonnes per annum in the coffee plantation sector across the three states from around three-lakh tonnes,” Gowda added.</div>
