The much-hyped online trading in copra (dry coconut), launched in February this year at Tiptur has not helped farmers, who had hoped it would end the role of middlemen.
The price of copra has plummeted to Rs. 11,333 per quintal and the farmers are planning not to sell their produce to merchants in the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) yard.
The problem is that the new system has not brought in new traders, resulting in farmers not getting competitive prices. More importantly, it has not eliminated malpractices.
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As a result, the arrival of copra, which was more than 12,000 bags per day when rates were good, has come down to 2,300 bags per day, out of which only 320 bags have been sold as on November 22. The price of copra reached a record high of Rs. 19,400 per quintal in September, but has since been plummeting.
B.S. Devaraj, State secretary of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sanga, said the price of copra in Delhi is Rs. 300 per kilo but merchants in Tiptur are buying copra at Rs. 145 per kilo. He alleged that the rates had come down due to a merchants’ lobby and copra was being bought directly from the farmers in their villages and transported to other states to evade tax. Though there is online-trading, the farmers are given Rs. 300 less than the quoted price as the amount is not being paid directly to the farmer’s bank account, he alleged.
B.R. Vishwanath, president of the Copra Merchants’ Association, Tiptur, on the other hand, argued that the rates had dropped as the demand had come down.
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K.C. Doreswamy, APMC secretary told The Hindu that he had a proposal to the Marketing Directorate in Bengaluru seeking permission to meet the merchants of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat who buy copra from Tiptur and convince them to participate in online-trading directly “so that farmers get a competitive price and middlemen eliminated.” He said banks had agreed to open zero-balance accounts for farmers to facilitate online payment.
Meanwhile, the Co-operation Department has claimed that the modal price of copra has "substantially increased" since February 2014. The release said that the modal price for November stands at Rs. 14,931 at the Tiptur APMC yard.