Technology Evaluation Centre (TEC) set up by the Coffee Board amidst the lush green coffee estates in Minumuluru near here is doing yeomen service to the tribal farmers especially those individual farmers cultivating coffee by introducing and transferring technology for producing and processing export worthy coffee. The main objective is to make farmers produce and process high grade coffee by following certain international norms and standards for successful marketing of coffee in the international market. Besides, the idea is to boost coffee production in India which is producing 3.5 lakh tonnes and merely contributing to only 4 percent of world’s coffee production.
Established in 1971, the TEC has been promoting quality coffee plantations in the hilly areas of Chintapalle, Araku Valley and Paderu and supporting the livelihoods of 1,08,240 tribal farmers in more than 55,000 hectares.
A Coffee Regional Research Station operating at Chintapalle set up by the Coffee Board is catering to the coffee farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha states. The board is giving a subsidy of Rs.15,000 per hectare to the coffee farmers and supplying quality seed to the farmers apart from helping them to upgrade their seed processing technology. Traditionally the farmers follow outdated methods of drying the seed on mud plastered floors, thereby hampering hygienic processing. It is encouraging the farmers to construct cement platforms for drying the harvested seed. The board is also supplying hand operated baby pulpers used for coffee processing at 50 per cent subsidy, ITDA 40 percent and the beneficiary contribution was 10 percent. The hand operated pulpers are used for removing peels over the coffee fruit. These are used to boost the quality of coffee and ensure remunerative price to them. Coffee Board Joint Director B.V. Mohan Das told The Hindu that the TEC was instrumental in improving the coffee production practices and enhancing their marketability through hygienic handling of the processed coffee. The organisation was instrumental in popularising coffee production among tribal farmers and in training farmers in coffee production with the involvement of Integrated Tribal Development Agency. Coffee Board senior liaison officer K.V.V.S. Raju said that during the past decade 8,283 drying yards had been built and thousands of baby pulpers had been supplied by extending 90 per cent subsidy for the same to the farmers. Its research agency in Chintapalli also was instrumental in passing of benefits of the research to the coffee growers. Pydithalli, a woman farmer growing coffee in Minumuluru in 2 hectares of land says that she immensely benefited from the transfer of technology and the subsidy component extended by the board for purchasing pulpers. She added that hundreds of farmers like her were benefiting from the incentives being given to them.
