Farmers have joined hands to launch an integrated coconut park at Ambajipeta in East Godavari district. The park is likely to be launched in three months.
Estimated to cost between ₹40 lakh and ₹50 lakh, the park is expected to provide employment to about 400 people when started.
The park will have copra harvesting area, coconut chips making unit, coir industry etc., according to Horticulture Department sources. “We are searching for a suitable site of 5 to 10 acre. Either the farmers’ land or endowments land will be taken on a long term lease to set up the park,” says Amalapuram Assistant Director (Horticulture) Ch. Srinivasulu.
Coconut being a zero wastage product, it was planned to integrate all these units at one place. “Even coir has good market in Hyderabad, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. The coconut chips have a big market in north India. One of the targets is to market as much as 50 lakh ball copra from the park,” the official said.
He said they were planning to tap funds under district collector’s innovative funds for the park. Usually, the farmers had to bear 25% of the cost to start a unit, while the remaining would be assistance through the department.
More than 1,080 farmers had joined hands to form a Farmers’ Producers’ Organisation (FPO), which has floated a company to market the produce of the coconut farmers.
“Every farmer will be a shareholder of the company. We have already started issuing shares of the company to the farmers and received ₹10 lakh so far. Each share has a face value of ₹10,” says company Chairman G. Raghavalu.
Not more than 5,000 shares would be issued to each farmer. And, to be a member, the farmer must have his own land or have at least 25 coconut trees. This is to ensure that only genuine farmers are members of the FPO, he says.
Coconut Development Board (CDB) Assistant Director R. Jayanath says that the CDB has encouraged the farmers to form FPOs. One of the main objectives of an FPO was eliminating middlemen and ensuring that the farmers got remunerative prices to their produce and also earn profits. True empowerment happens only when farmers were involved in all stages of value addition supply chain, such as production, aggregation, processing, marketing, distribution and sales.
Farmers were getting ₹8 to ₹9 per each coconut now. The target was to achieve ₹15 per nut through the company.
The company would distribute the profits to the farmers, he adds.