Climate change, insects hit coconut farmers hard

Rajkot: Thanks to the health benefits it provided, the raw coconut juice and its meat were in high demand during the second wave of Covid. One nut used to fetch around Rs 60-80 in the retail market. The farmers of Gir Somnath and Junagadh districts, the major suppliers of the crop, made a windfall as they got almost Rs 30 per coconut.
But things have changed a lot since then.The farmers are now suffering huge losses. Not just the drop in demand, they have been hit by multiple factors. The damage caused by cyclone Tauktae, whitefly infesting the crop and climate change causing fruits to drop prematurely have added to the coconut-growing farmers’ cup of woes. All these factors have resulted in income of an average farmer going down by almost 90%.
According to scientists and farmers, cyclone Tauktae caused huge damage in areas like Rajula, Jafrabad, Una and Diu. But at other places such as Veraval, Sutrapada, Talala and Mangrol the loss was much less — around 5%.
D K Varu head of department of fruit science at Junagadh Agriculture University (JAU) pegged the average loss in coconut production to be around 30%. “There are several reasons for that, one being the damage caused by the cyclone in certain pockets. The spiraling whitefly too damaged the crop in the last one year and the third is climate change.
“The fruit setting percentage has declined since the last few years because of climate change. For example, Chorwad is the most suitable place for coconut trees but even there we got complaints of fruit dropping,” Varu said.
Arjan Barad, a coconut farmer in Gir Somnath district, said that the whitefly infection has resulted in huge production losses. “There is no program of mass sprinkling of pesticides by the government. The price of nuts has gone down and production is also down, what I earn by selling nuts is not enough to even recover the cost of pesticide, electricity bill or labour cost,” Barad said.
Earlier, Barad was harvesting 1,500 nuts per month which has gone down to just 300 nuts now. He used to get Rs 30 per nut during the second wave of Covid and was earning Rs 45,000 per month. His monthly earning now is just Rs 3,000. The Covid was an exceptional situation, Barad said adding, “Normally, throughout the year farmers get Rs 20 per nut.”
Vija Naran, an agent who buys coconuts on behalf of traders, further explained the reason for the price drop. He said, “The diesel price is skyrocketing and the transportation cost is very high. The traders can’t afford to send coconut to other states so they are not buying it from farmers.”