Coconut farmers are in a fix following a steep fall in the prices of coconut in the State.
Leave alone getting a remunerative price, we are struggling to recover the cost of cultivation, farmers said, lamenting that the prices have crashed so hard that a coconut was now hardly fetching ₹6 compared to ₹10 to ₹12 in the past. At present, the price of 1,000 coconuts is around ₹8,000, compared to ₹15,000 to ₹18,000 a couple of months ago. The farmers have to spend ₹3 per piece on plucking and other expenses, they say.
Farmers like Bollu Ramakrishna, Ravi Krishna, Bobba Ramesh, and Ashok (all from erstwhile East and West Godavari districts) say that the overhead costs have increased three to four times in the recent past. A farmer spends ₹42,000 per acre on fertilizer, pesticides etc. However, the prices are not crossing ₹10,800 per quintal. A farmer would avoid losses if the prices were at least ₹12,000 per quintal, they say.
