Mangaluru: Rubber Growers’ Suicide the most Worrying Issue – MLC Ivan D’ Souza

Spread the love

Mangaluru: MLC Ivan D’Souza held a press meet at his office at the MCC premises here, on March 8.

Speaking to the mediapersons, Ivan said, “In the 135th Vidhana Parishad joint session I had an opportunity to raise 20 questions. I raised important questions and during the zero hour I discussed important issues pertaining to hike in salary of professors and the problems faced by entrepreneurs in Mangaluru.”

2-20160308-ivan-press1-001

He further said, “Rubber growers in Karnataka had earlier urged the state government to help them tide over the crash in the price of the commodity. Rubber is being cultivated in 1,17,637.50 acres of land in Karnataka and the total yield is 35,230 tons. Growers are in distress as the cost of production has overtaken their income. Many growers have stopped tapping rubber and some have even started felling the trees and growing alternate crops. The most worrying issue is the suicide of rubber growers and to solve this crisis Shivamogga and DK district deputy director of the Horticulture department had been to Kerala on a study tour to study the ‘Rubber Production Incentive Scheme’, which is implemented in the state of Kerala and submitted a report to the state government. After going through the report the state government will evaluate the pros and cons and later form a committee, which will benefit the rubber growers of the state.”

1-20160308-ivan-press1

“Import of arecanut is a cause of concern for both growers and co-operatives. After going through the merits and demerits, scientists of the Horticulture department from the Bagalkot University have gone through the report for the formation of an arecanut committee. The Government has released Rs 108.79 crores for the arecanut growers as compensation for crop loss,” he added.

Corporator Praveen Chandra Alva , Former Mayor, Shashidhar Hegde and others were also present.


Spread the love

1 Comment

  1. Now the pain of the rubber growers has penetrated to the State of Karnataka too. The State of Kerala is producing 90% of the rubber production in India. India being the 3rd in rubber consumption in the world, the liberal import of rubber from countries like Malaysia-Singapore-Vietnam-Thailand to make the industrialists of India happy by the current Government makes the deplorable predicament of the rubber farmers all across India very critical. 11 lakh families in Kerala are directly and indirectly associated with the once money cow called ” rubber industry”; thus close to 50 lakh people are seriously affected economically. Several friends and relatives I know personally have stopped producing, yet another group is cutting down the trees and planting coffee, coco and other spices. Yet another group growing grass as cow grazing land for the cattle industry. The declining real estate value in Kerala is fundamentally associated with the rubber price; now added with another wind of plunged oil price.

    The declined oil price is another challenge. From oil, synthetic rubber can be produced for lower price. If the Government of India won’t take an affirmative action to curtail the import of rubber, we see no hope for the rubber growers in India. The demand from China is declining.

    Another paradox exhibited by the Government of India is the barricade of chicken from the U.S., the leg quarters in the U.S. is piled up by the millions of tons which can be sold for 1/3 of the current chicken price in India. But, to protect the chicken farmers, the Government of India won’t allow the import of U.S. chicken. What a double standard?

Comments are closed.