Striving hard to raise the domestic production of rubber while bringing down the cost of production, the Rubber Board has mooted a programme to form collective ventures of Rubber Producers’ Societies (RPS) and companies in the RPS sector that will adopt untapped rubber plantations.
The programme, according to the Rubber Board, intends to identify untapped rubber holdings, maintain it and conduct harvesting. For, only an increase in the domestic production of rubber would pave way to a reduction in rubber import.
“The board has noticed that a number of holdings remain untapped owing to the fall in rubber prices and high cost of production.
It was also noted that tapping was not done in many of the plantations of absentee owners, leading to serious crop loss,” it said. A preliminary assessment by the Board has suggested that about 1.25 lakh hectares of rubber plantation remain untapped due to various reasons.
It further noted that the small growers have limitations to reduce the costs for maintenance, harvesting, processing and marketing of rubber.
RPS units
“The intervention of companies and RPS units will make rubber cultivation viable by implementing collective procurement of agricultural inputs, mechanisation, effective utilisation of labour, maintenance of quality of produce and increasing the bargaining capacity for marketing,” it added.
Apart from the companies, RPS units with sufficient infrastructure facilities also can adopt holdings.
Under the scheme, the growers can discuss the terms with the companies for undertaking the maintenance of plants, harvesting of trees and marketing of produce.
The company will appoint tappers for harvesting and the income generated from the sale of rubber will be paid to the growers after deducting operational costs.
As per official estimates, while the area under Natural Rubber (NR) rose to 8,22,000 hectares in 2018-19 as against 7,78,400 hectares in 2013-14, the actual production in the last fiscal stood at 6,48, 000 tonnes, a sharp fall from 7,74,000 tonnes registered in 2013-14.
The productivity per hectare during the previous fiscal was just 1446 kg per hectare as against 1629 kg recorded in 2013-14.
Meanwhile, the Board expects the production levels to touch 7,50,000 tonnes-mark in the current fiscal.
