The board has forwarded the proposal to the Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives (MoAC) in line with the five-year and three-year strategic plans for tea and coffee development that envisage providing incentives to farmers, including subsidy in farming inputs. [break]
“Tea and coffee produced locally can´t compete with foreign products unless we provide subsidy in inputs to reduce production cost. That is why we have recommended the government to provide subsidy to tea and coffee farmers from the coming fiscal year,” Binaya Mishra, executive director at NTCDB, told myrepublica.com on Monday. “Subsidy to farmers is a must, if we are to achieve the target as per the tea and coffee strategic plan.”
Mishra said they have proposed subsidy in factory equipments used in tea and coffee processing, new plantation cost and fee for organic certification. He said the announcement of subsidy would help encourage more farmers into tea and coffee farming.
The government stopped providing subsidized loan to tea farmers some three decades ago. Since then, the government hasn´t given subsidy in any form to the farmers. The board has floated strategic plans worth Rs 1 billion for tea and Rs 105 million for coffee farming in a bid to maximize commercialization in tea and coffee farming by reducing production cost.
In its strategic plans, the board has focused on increasing production, enhancing and assuring quality and identifying markets for Nepali coffee through a strong and coordinated action of concerned agencies.
The strategic plans were worked out keeping in view the growing domestic demand for Nepali tea and coffee and overseas export prospects. Realizing the importance of quality certification, the plan has also adopted a strategy to set up internationally accredited certification laboratory in the country.
It has also laid high emphasis on skill enhancement trainings for farmers besides development of technical human resources along with necessary studies and researches to increase production.
Nepali farmers are producing Arabica variety of filter coffee, which is the most popular coffee variety in the world enjoying 70 percent share in the global market.
Under the plan, the government aims to increase productivity of coffee to 800 kg per hectare from existing 300 kg and expand production area to 2,400 hectares from existing 1,000 hectares. It also plans to increase production of parchment coffee to 600 tons per year from existing 260 tons.
Commercial coffee farming is done in more than a dozen districts, including Gulmi, Palpa, Syangja, Arghakhanchi and Lalitpur. In 2007/08, Nepal had exported coffee worth Rs 950 million against the export worth Rs 360 recorded a year earlier.
Tea exports recorded sharp increment to 8,600 tons in 2007/08 from 81.4 tons recorded in fiscal year 1996/97. Total tea production area increased from 3,502 hectares to 16,594 hectares and production volume rose to 16.1 million kg from 2.9 million kg over the period.
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