Rubber Board, India has set a natural rubber (NR) production target of one million tonnes to meet the country’s current demand for the commodity, according to Ajith Kumar, Rubber Board Chairman.
The chairman also said that they want to meet the entire demand by producing locally in the next two years. Shortage in the domestic market in 2015 to 2016 was 432,415 tonnes, and so import of natural rubber increased to 458,374 tonnes in 2015 to 2016 from 177,130 tonnes in 2009 to 2010.
For 2016 to 2017, the Rubber Board has set a target to grow natural production by 16% to 654,000 tonnes. Production was down 12.5% in 2015 to 2016.
“We want to reverse the downward trend in production, which has been happening for the past two years,” said Kumar.
The Rubber Board’s strategy is to bring more untapped areas into production, increase productivity through skill development and adopt better agriculture processes. They are also looking at adding about 10,000 hectares of new rubber cultivation every year.
Production has already increased by 2% since May as a result of some of the production initiatives, said Kumar.
The share of untapped areas had increased from eight per cent in 2013 to 2014 to 30% in 2015 to 2016. The Rubber Board is making these plantations productive by grouping farmers under a “Tappers Bank”, which works more like a self-help group model. Each group will have 10 tappers, who will take care of individual growers. Another major advantage of this initiative is reduction in costs for the farmer.
According to Kumar, the number of tapping days will come down to one instead of seven days. The advantage for the farmer is he will pay wages for only for one day instead of seven days.
The Rubber Board has launched this initiative on a pilot basis and 60 rubber-producing societies have already been identified. In July and August, untapped areas reduced by around 5% to 25% of the total production area.
Prices have dropped to Rs138.50 a kg for RSS-4 variety of rubber in the domestic market from Rs 208.05 a kg in 2011-12. The government of Kerala, the major rubber-growing state in India, has introduced a subsidy scheme to guarantee a minimum price of Rs150 a kg for rubber farmers.
Kumar also believes that by upgrading workers’ skills, production can go up by 25%. The Rubber Board expects yield to increase to 1,500 kg per hectare in FY17 from 1,437 kg a hectare in 2015 to 2016.
Around 30,000 people will be trained in Kerala and Tripura, which have agreed to sponsor the project.
“If productivity can be improved to 1,600 kg per hectare, we can produce around 900,000 tonnes. Duty-free imports would be around 100,000 tonnes. Both add up to one million tonnes, which is the total demand in the country,” said Kumar.
The Board has also identified around 50,000 hectares in Assam and another 75,000 hectares in Tripura for starting fresh cultivation.