Newly elected president of Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Ltd (CAMPCO) S.R. Satishchandra said on Sunday that the cooperative wants to diversify its products.
Speaking to The Hindu, he said that CAMPCO wanted to expand the market for its chocolate and other cocoa products. It had already initiated steps to market its chocolate products to the railways and defence forces.
The products of CAMPCO should be made available to all people conveniently. He said that he would strengthen the cooperative further by taking all board members into confidence.
Asked about the demand by Prakash Kammaradi, chairman, Karnataka Agriculture Price Commission, that the government set up an arecanut board, he said he was not aware of it.
Meanwhile, at the annual general meeting of the cooperative on Sunday, farmer members of the cooperative urged CAMPCO to intervene to save the oldest cooperative institution in Dakshina Kannada, South Kanara Agriculturist Cooperative Marketing Society Ltd. (SKACMS), from being closed down due to heavy losses.
They said that SKACMS is the mother of CAMPCO and CAMPCO should not allow it to die. If SKACMS was to be saved it required about Rs. 20 crore.
The outgoing president of CAMPCO Konkodi Padmanabha (who is now a director in the Board of Directors of CAMPCO) said that the cooperative would do all efforts to save it within the ambit of law.
Mr. Padmanabha said that the SKACMS had its own management and it and its “non-alert” members should be blamed for the current poor state of it. Earlier, CAMPCO had extended its hand to save it by pumping in Rs. 2.5 crore. As a multi-state cooperative body, CAMPCO had its own limitations and hence SKACMS could not be merged with CAMPCO.
Mr. Konkodi said that a meeting of all members of SKACMS could be called to plan strategy to save it from being closed down.
Anna Vinayachandra, former MLC, reminded CAMPCO the importance of SKACMS and it was the one founded by Molahalli Shiva Rao, a towering personality in the cooperative movement in the coastal belt.
