White arecanut prices crash further

It could have been triggered by an increase in imports: CAMPCO chief

Contrary to expectations, the prices of white arecanut crashed by about 15 per cent a kilogram on a single day on Friday after maintaining a steady trend for about a month. The farmers expected the domestic market to be stable as they were given to understand that imports would come down.

Prices of ‘chol’ (old stocks) variety fell from Rs. 270 a kg to Rs. 255 a kg, while that of fresh arrivals decreased from Rs. 265 a kg to Rs. 250 a kg. Earlier, the prices came down from Rs. 295-Rs. 310 a kg in July to Rs. 270-Rs. 275 a kg in mid-August.

Speaking to The Hindu ,president of the Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Ltd. (CAMPCO) Konkodi Padmanabha said that he believed the crash could be due to an increase in the quantity of imports.

Mr. Padmanabha, who is in Delhi, said that when he met the officials of the Directorate-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), under the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry, he was told that the DGFT could not implement an August 14 notification hiking the minimum import price of arecanut from Rs. 110 a kg to Rs. 170 a kg as it had not been published in the Gazette of India. This is said to be linked to a recent order by the Calcutta High Court. He said that he was told that the court, in a case filed by importers, has ruled that the DGFT did not have the power to fix or increase the import base price. Mr. Padmanabha said that he was told that the court had also squashed an earlier order of the DGFT fixing Rs. 110 a kg as base price for importing arecanut.

Mr. Padmanabha said that the cooperative’s legal experts were studying this order. He said that it had made imports of arecanut easy for importers at low rate.

Meets Sitharaman

Mr. Padmanabha said that he met Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman in Delhi on Friday and urged her to ban the import of arecanut in the interest of farmers.

Mr. Padmanabha said that she assured him of taking up the issue while announcing the new foreign trade policy next year.

He said that now many private arecanut traders had stopped procuring the produce from farmers due to the price fall. The cooperative would make all efforts to give the best prices to growers facing the competition in market, he said.

He said that the cooperative purchased 4,600 quintals of arecanut on Thursday from farmers at a cost of Rs. 11 crore.