Centre to take steps to protect arecanut growers’ interests, says Araga Jnanendra

The Central government assured to implement measures to protect the interests of arecanut growers, Home Minister Araga Jnanendra said here on Thursday.

A delegation of arecanut growers led by Jnanendra met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, seeking measures to protect the interests of domestic arecanut growers.

“The two assured to take immediate steps in the interest of domestic growers, directing the officials to act upon the memorandum of the delegation,” Jnanendra told reporters.

The delegation demanded the centre to impose higher import duty on areca, prevent the supply of low-quality areca and areca products from neighbouring countries, contain the import of areca projecting as dry fruits, set up a special task force to take up programmes for the development of areca farmers and to increase the minimum import price or minimum tariff value for arecanut to Rs 360 per kg or above.

“The government fixed the minimum import price of arecanut at Rs 251 per kg in 2017. The minimum import price or tariff value should be increased to discourage the import of arecanut to protect the interests of domestic growers,” A Kishore Kumar Kodgi, president, Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Limited (CAMPCO), Mangaluru, demanded. He was part of the delegation.

Expenses for arecanut cultivation was fixed at Rs 250 a kg in 2017. Cost of cultivation has gone up nearly 30% since then. At present, cost of cultivation of white and red varieties of arecanut is Rs 360 per kg and Rs 409 per kg respectively, according to growers.