With natural rubber cultivation facing a reversal of fortunes, hundreds of sapling and planting material suppliers are downing shutters as more and more businesses reflect the deepening crisis for the once prosperous sector.
“We are caught between the devil and the deep sea,” says Baby Kuttiankal, one of the pioneering rubber nursery operators in Kerala, about the dilemma nursery operators are facing.
‘‘We are not sure of the future and, at the same time, we are not in a frame of mind to close down the operations altogether," he says about the situation facing hundreds of businesses.
As vice president of the All Kerala Rubber Nursery Association, he is still at the helm of a group that has a big say in the type of planting materials available in the State. He remembers that his nursery near Bharananganam in Kottayam district was once a trendsetter in the business and was instrumental in exporting rubber saplings to Mexico. Over the last 40 years, he has seen the rise and now the fall of the rubber nursery business. Many people are abandoning it and others are shifting to other crops, he says.
Josekutty Thulumpanmakkal, near Pallikkathode in Kottayam, says the setbacks suffered by the rubber sector is one of the key reasons for the closure of hundreds of nurseries.
Dwindling numbers
The association of nurseries had about 1,000 members about a decade ago. The number has steadily come down and about 60-70% of the former members are out of the group as more and more business owners shifted to other crops.
Mr. Baby says COVID-19 too has played a big role in forcing the closure of the businesses. The cost of labour had forced nursery owners to depend on workers from other States to run their businesses. However, the onset of the COVID-19 lockdown had seen thousands of them fleeing the State for the safety of their homes. He says about 20,000 to 25,000 jobs have been lost on account of the slowdown as well as closure of the rubber nurseries.
Mr. Josekutty points out the phenomenal rise in the cost of inputs as one of many reasons for the falling business. The cost of inputs such as plastic cups, coir pith and soil has risen way beyond the affordability of the sapling suppliers. While the cost of production of a unit of planting material has come to over ₹85, nursery owners are forced to sell it at about ₹60 a piece to stay on the business, he says.
