India’s coffee production to drop due to untimely rain

The Dollar Business Bureau

India’s coffee production is expected to decline because of untimely rain, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday. However, she maintained that the consumption of India’s coffee varieties has increased.

“Unfortunately, because of the lack of timely rain during the blossoming season of coffee, we expect that there will be a fall in the total output in the coming years too,” she said in a reply to the Lok Sabha.

She, however, said that consumption of coffee of Indian varieties has increased as several domestic brands are themselves establishing outlets specifically in the northern region of India, where the habit of coffee drinking is less compared to theSouth.

The commerce minister stated that India has only 2 percent of the coffee cultivating area in the world, but the country produces 4 percent of the coffee.

“India has a share of 5 percent of the overall coffee exports. This means, India’s coffee growers are doing quite well and about 90 percent of total coffee produced in the country is being shipped out,” she informed.

The minister further said that India produced around 3.4 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of coffee in 2014-15, out of which, 3 lakh MT of coffee was exported to Belgium, Germany, Italy, Russia and Turkey.

Sitharaman also informed the House that the association of coffee exporters has proposed to the Department of Commerce for including green coffee beans in the proposed GST’s exempted list. “However, the proposal is still under deliberation,” she added.

To motivate small tea producers and to provide them better rates for their products, the minister said a proposal has been presented to modify the Tea (Marketing) Control Order (TMCO) 2003, so as to define the micro and mini manufacturing units and exempt these units from getting the no objection certificate for producing tea.