No move to set up arecanut board in Karnataka, reiterates Union Government

Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Ramnath Thakur informed the Lok Sabha that arecanut imports are being restricted through an import duty of 100% and recently revised Minimum Import Price (MIP) for arecanut from ₹251 a kg to ₹351 a kg.

MANGALURU

The Union Government has reiterated that there is no proposal to constitute an arecanut board in Karnataka.

Replying to an unstarred question by Prabha Mallikarjun, Member of Parliament, Davanagere in the Lok Sabha on March 18, Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Ramnath Thakur said, “No such proposal is under consideration.”

Dr. (Ms.) Mallikarjun wanted to know whether an arecanut board has been proposed for processing, marketing, developing, value addition, regulating the price of arecanut on the lines of Makhana Board in Bihar.

Earlier, on February 5, 2021, then Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar informed the Rajya Sabha that creating a separate board for arecanut is not a priority, in response to an unstarred question by K.C. Ramamurthy, Member of Parliament from Karnataka.

More than a decade ago, Prakash Kammaradi, the then chairpersons of Karnataka Agriculture Price Commission, had stressed on the need to set up an arecanut board to protect the interests of growers, for value addition, to ensure remunerative price and to undertake research to prevent pest and fungal infection in the crop. Following a recommendation by the commission to set up the board, the government of Karnataka constituted a technical committee in 2015 to examine the proposal. The committee was chaired by the vice-chancellor of University of Horticulture Sciences, Bagalkot, and comprised officials from the Horticulture Department, CPCRI and arecanut cooperatives. Nothing has moved since then.

A section of cooperative societies engaged in marketing of arecanut were not in favour of setting up the board on the ground that it would be managed by bureaucrats and hence interests of farmers may not be protected. There was a demand for fair representation in the proposed board for farmers, marketing cooperative societies and agriculture experts.