Prices of white areca nut harvested after November last — locally called hosa adike or chali — have shot up by Rs. 33 a kilogram during the past 45 days, thanks to multiple factors, including the Lok Sabha election.
A close observer of the market and a member of the G.V. Joshi committee on revising production cost of areca nut Ramesh Kaintaje told The Hindu that this sudden jump in prices in one-and-half months was unheard in the past one decade.
He said that the prices of hosa adike in this arrival season (2013-14) started with Rs. 145 a kg in last December. In a span of four months, the prices rose by Rs. 43 per kg. Mr. Kaintaje said that the hosa adike now fetched Rs. 188 per kg.
Its price in mid-February stood at Rs. 155 per kg.
According to M. Suresh Bhandary, Managing Director, Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Ltd. (Campco) since the declaration of the dates for elections, the prices have shot up by Rs. 18 per kg.
It is because “illegal imports” of areca nut have come down after the armed forces stepped up their vigil on the borders with Bangladesh following declaration of elections, he claimed.
(According to the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry, 84 per cent of the total imports of areca nut in the first nine months of 2012-13 were from the neighbouring Bangladesh.)
Mr. Bhandary said as there was a shortage in the arrivals of domestic red variety of areca nut used for blending in gutka, its manufacturers opted for low quality white areca nut (such as koka and pathora) for blending.
As low quality white areca nut was exhausted in the market, naturally the graded superior quality of hosa adike is commanding good price now.
Mr. Bhandary said that as fruit-rot disease ( kole roga ) in last rainy season affected vast tracts of plantations, there was shortage in the arrivals of both red and white areca nut.
