Coconut farmers elated as price soars to ₹54 per kg at Uzhavar Sandhais

Coconut prices surge, farmers benefit, and government aids in recovery from root wilt disease for sustainable cultivation.

Coconut farmers at the Uzhavar Sandhais in the region get back home with tidy revenue, what with the price of nuts witnessing a quantum jump over the last month.

On Saturday, coconut was sold for ₹54 per kg at the R.S. Puram Uzhavar Sandhai. The price has, in fact, come down by about ₹5 a kg in the last few weeks, Administrative Officer, Sam Ravel, said, adding that robust sale of coconut is being witnessed despite the cost escalation.

The price was the same at Tiruppur South Uzhavar Sandhai, another large market of its kind in the western region. Customers at the Uzhavar Sandhais are usually retail vegetable sellers, and it only implies that coconut turns even pricier when it reaches the customer, the sellers say.

At the retail points, customers continue to purchase coconuts as usual notwithstanding the selling price of up to ₹65 per kg, said Gandhi, a vendor in Ganapathy.

According to P. Meenambikai, Deputy Director, Department of Agricultural Marketing and Agri Business, the price will, in all probability, remain to be on the higher side till January 2025. If not for the root wilt disease and the intense summer months, such a shortage situation would not have arisen, Ms. Meenambikai explained.

According to Horticulture Department officials, the rise in the price of coconuts may not actually mean much for the farmers who would have invariably lost a number of trees to the root wilt disease.

To set right the situation in the long run, the department has enlisted farmers affected by the root wilt and other diseases to the schemes of Coconut Development Board for expansion of acreage.