The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Visakhapatnam News : GCC plans to step up coffee business

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Tuesday, Sep 02, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam

GCC plans to step up coffee business

R. Jagadeeswara Rao

Coffee plantation is being cultivated in Visakhapatnam and East Godavari districts
Plans are being formulated to encourage coffee cultivation

VISAKHAPATNAM: The Girijan Cooperative Corporation (GCC), which made a foray into coffee business on a modest scale last year, has plans to substantially increase its share this year.

Coffee dust prepared by the GCC from coffee seeds cultivated in Paderu area of Visakhapatnam district had earned acclaim as ‘Anantagiri Coffee’ in international market. Andhra Pradesh is one of the four States where coffee plantations are raised, the others being Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Coffee plantation is being cultivated in the State, mainly in two districts viz in the eleven agency mandals of Visakhapatnam district and in the agency areas of neighbouring East Godavari district.

The area under coffee cultivation in the two districts is 50,000 hectares and 10,000 hectares respectively.

Good profits

Last year, the GCC had taken up purchase of coffee seed and sale of coffee packets named as “Anantagiri Coffee’ on a pilot basis.

Even though there had been wide fluctuations in the purchasing price of coffee seed, the GCC which had purchased the seed at a price of Rs.30 a kg., initially had to pay three times of this price at the end of the season. It had purchased 300 quintals of coffee seed and after processing the same sold it as ‘Anantagiri Coffee’ and made good profits.

According to S. Adinarayana, General Manager (Marketing) GCC, the quality of‘Anantagiri Coffee’ is recognised even in the international market. This is because tribals cultivating coffee plants will use only organics fertilizers and chemical fertilizers had no place in their scheme of things.

However, packing of processed coffee powder required improvements. Coffee is a blend of processed coffee seed and chicory in the ratio of 60:40. To retain the fragrance of coffee powder, special packets with provision for vacuum would have to be used. This they proposed to do this year, said Mr. Adinarayana. He said that this year the GCC proposed to procure 1000 quintals of coffee seed for processing. He said that the GCC had also formulated plans to encourage coffee cultivation. We sanction loans for cultivation of coffee plants and accept crop viz coffee seed for recovery of loans, he said. This, however, required follow up for quite some time because coffee is a long term crop and the yield would start only after three years.

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